


Control

by TheFlashFic



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M, Pyromania, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, and enter the sexy times, currently pre-slash but that won't last, post-Marooned for LOT, pretty coarse talk about mental illness, some ephemeral current Flash timeline
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 00:34:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6262276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFlashFic/pseuds/TheFlashFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cisco is kidnapped by a Rogue - again - but it turns out to be just the start of journey he never ever expected to take.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mick the Kidnapper

**Author's Note:**

> This is not actually the weirdest pairing I've ever tried to write, but it's close. 
> 
> This takes place after Marooned, obviously, and however that plotline resolves on LoT I'm going with the 'Snart only pretended to kill Mick to please Rip but instead just abandoned him in his own time and city'. Keep in mind that I don't really watch LoT hardcore, so hmu if Mick is weird. 
> 
> Without further ado, here's...whatever this is!

It figures, really. It’s the first night in weeks that Cisco’s managed to go to bed at a decent hour, without the aid of medication and without nightmares jerking him awake every hour.

So this is the night someone breaks into his place.

Hell, he should probably just be surprised that it’s the first time. His new cheap apartment is in a building that could generously be called shitty, and there are supervillains out there who know who he is and don’t seem to have any problem tracking him down. He’s lucky he hasn’t been invaded before.

And how is this his life, that he has to realize things like that?

He hasn’t got any kind of alarms wired into his place yet, so what wakes him up is the incredibly loud creak of the floorboards as someone comes in. The shithole wooden flooring groans normally, and whoever this is isn’t bothering to walk with a light step.

Cisco hears the creak, sucks in a breath, and very carefully doesn’t move. No weapons nearby. Phone’s on the table, he’d have to roll over and reach for it. But one button and Barry can be here in a blink. Might be worth the movement.

The footsteps stop at the foot of his bed, and Cisco contains a shiver of fear. His heart’s beating fit to burst. Maybe it’s a prank. Maybe it’s Barry.

Please let it be Barry.

“Ramon. Get up.”

Not Barry.

Cisco does recognize the voice, though he can’t place it right off the bat. He opens his eyes and blinks out at the darkness. Nothing but a silhouette. 

He really needs to invest in a nightlight. With motion sensors and klaxons and a direct line to the Flash’s cell phone.

He squints into the dark, sitting up slowly. “Who are you?”

“Get up. Put some clothes on. You gotta come with me.”

Now he realizes. He places the gruff, hoarse voice with a memory, and he swallows down another bolt of fear. “Heat Wave.”

There’s a moment, and a faint grunt. 

“Rory,” Cisco corrects himself. He tries to look brave, which isn’t easy considering this is the guy who beat the hell out of him and his brother both. “What do you want? I thought you and Snart were off playing hero--”

“Get up," Rory snaps, "or I'll drag you out of bed myself. Don’t got all night.”

Cisco scowls. He can’t imagine he’s much easier to see than Rory is, so he throws the covers off, slides to the edge of the bed, and casually, like it’s just instinct, reaches for his phone.

“I’ll burn your arm off your body, kid.”

“Ooookay.” Cisco raises his hands slowly. Apparently he _is_ easier to see than Rory is. He looks back at the dark silhouette and sighs, reaching for the t-shirt he dumped on the floor before crawling into bed that night.

Maybe he should feel grateful Rory woke him up and let him dress instead of sneaking up and bashing him into forgetting calculus. Downright polite for a Rogue.

And again, how the hell is this is life now?

* * *

Rory ties his hands, hurls his phone against a wall - which, rude - and leads him downstairs to the kind of van that has Venice Beach Burnout written all over it. Literally. It’s along the side and the back and there’s an insultingly bad mural of a beach painted on the side. The Rogues must be desperate these days. Playing hero with Kendra and the others doesn't seem to have done him any favors.

Cisco gets tossed in the back.

He tries to memorize turns and things like they do in movies, before he realizes that’s stupid. He decides to try to get a few more minutes of shut-eye instead. But he’s a little too busy worrying about potential blackmail and threats and beatings to settle into the cozy carpeted flooring. Besides, Rory drives like he’s in the middle of a car chase.

It’s unnervingly quiet aside from the screech of tires around turns and the occasional honking of some no-doubt-wronged driver.

When they get to where they’re going, maybe half an hour has passed. Rory screeches them to a halt and jumps out of the van, coming around with those same stomping-loud footsteps that woke Cisco up. He throws the back door open and reaches in, and simply hauls Cisco up over a shoulder and starts walking.

Cisco wants to protest, but that’s not gonna do his dignity any favors. He settles for just looking around for some clue where they are.

It’s a house, a normal-looking one story house, pretty small but with a nice trimmed yard and a couple of rocking chairs on the porch. It’s surrounded by trees and greenery that all loom black overhead. It’s set too far back on the road to make out anything useful. There’s a mailbox near the street, but Cisco can’t see numbers or words or anything.

Rory doesn’t explain. He marches in through an unlocked front door - that he then locks behind him, Cisco notices - and marches them back through a hallway and into a small room.

Looks like a college student’s room, Cisco sees when Rory flips the light on. There’s a futon, a messy bookshelf, a desk with space cleared off where he’d bet a laptop usually sits.

It’s all absurdly normal.

Cisco barely has time for a noise of protest before he’s hauled off Rory’s shoulder and dropped on the futon. Luckily it’s softer than the one he himself had in college.

Rory stands there and regards him for a moment.

In the light it’s even easier to be scared of him. Rory doesn’t look all that great. He’s got a hard set to his jaw, a light in his eyes that means nothing good, if Cisco knows psychos. And he does.

He’s a big, broad, solid dude. He looks like he hasn’t shaved in a couple of days, and his clothes are worn out and dirty. His hair’s grown out a little since Cisco’s last adventure with him and his equally psycho bff, but that’s the only real difference Cisco can see.

There’s a lull, the first since Cisco was woken up so badly. Rory takes him in, and doesn’t seem to mind that Cisco’s eyeing him right back.

Then Rory holds up a hand, palm out. “Stay.” He turns on his heel and marches out of the room.

Cisco blinks, and gapes, and wants to protest being talked to like a dog. But then he’s alone in this normal-looking bedroom in Suburbia, Missouri, and what the actual hell is any of this about?

He’s debating getting up - just to defy Rory, it’s not like he thinks he’d actually get anywhere - but those plodding footsteps come back before he can form a half-assed plan.

Rory’s armed when he darkens the doorway again.

Cisco’s eyes go right to the heat gun and there they stay. It’s a pain in his chest, that thing, but also pride, and fear. It’s one of his babies, after all, of course he’s proud. But it’s probably killed people, just like the cold gun. And now it might kill him.

Cisco Ramon knows death. He’s died by speedster-induced heart attack, by robot bee, by a tidal wave of evil magic. He remembers them, all of them. It’s made him long for a mundane death when the big one finally comes. Something boring, like a car accident, or going out in his sleep when he’s two hundred and seven years old.

He has never wanted to burn alive. Jesus.

But Rory lofts the gun, holding it with both hands along the body of the weapon. “Fix it.”

Relief is a cold wash that makes his heart start to beat even faster for some reason. “What?”

“It broke. I know how it works, how to take it apart, how to fix the small stuff. But this...I can’t figure out how to fix this.”

Cisco gapes at him. He’s half-splayed on a stranger’s futon after being forcibly awakened and kidnapped, and it’s because the heat gun broke?

Rory regards him, his face mostly a blank slate. That’s what he seems to be when he’s not furious and beating on anyone within reach - blank. Cisco suspects he’s not the brightest bulb. He’s hard to read, just big and silent, holding his gun out like he’s asking a favor of a friend and not making demands of a kidnapping victim.

Cisco wants to say no. He has to. Even just to get the objection out there into the universe. He will forever regret the hot and cold guns, because of what they’ve become. His tech was never supposed to kill anyone. Not the accelerator, not the guns, not any of it.

Every person Captain Cold and Heat Wave hurt with those things, Cisco is responsible for. He hasn’t gone a single day without remembering that and feeling the weight of it, if only for a few minutes at a time. Sometimes he thinks about Lewis Snart, and the fear in Lisa's eyes and the scar on her shoulder, and he's downright  _furious_  about his death. Not because he's dead - abusive POS reaped what he sowed - butthat Cisco has to feel _guilt_ over that bastard dying at the hands of a weapon he built. 

On the other hand, this is Mick Rory. He and Snart supposedly went off to become heroes, but all Cisco has seen of him personally is that he's violent and unstable at the best of times. Besides, he's here, so obviously the hero gig didn't work out. They’re all alone in this weirdly normal house, Cisco's got no way to call for help. 

Rory’s bad enough with Snart there to rein him in - how bad is he on his own?  


He swallows, and it aches. He’s going to die in the suburbs.

Rory regards him in the silence, eyes unreadable in their blankness. Like the heat gun itself - just waiting for a trigger to be pulled to become deadly. He lofts the gun a little higher, and he meets Cisco’s eyes. 

“Please?” 

It’s unsure, like he’s trying the word out to see how it fits.

Cisco sucks in a startled breath so fast he all but chokes on it. “What?”

Rory shrugs, and for a moment the blankness slides a little and he seems almost amused by Cisco’s shock. “Manners make friends.”

“Oh my god, this is all one long dream, isn’t it? I’m dreaming this.”

Rory moves to the small desk of the little room and sets the gun down. “Got some toolboxes and things, nothing fancy, but you can fix it, right? Then I’ll take you back...wherever, where you wanna go.”

“I can’t.” Cisco says the words and then says a prayer, short and silent but vehement.  _Padre nuestro..._

Rory frowns. “You didn’t even look at it.”

“I mean…” He sits up awkwardly, looking from Rory to the abandoned heat gun. “I can’t. You’ll use it to hurt people. You’ll kill people. I can’t…”

Rory’s head tilts. “You built it.”

“For experiments! For research! I built it to work on temperature induction models and…” He shakes his head. “It was never supposed to be a weapon.”

“It’s a  _ gun  _ .”

“Not...that was just the most effective...it doesn’t matter! I had to build it, fine, but you can’t just...I can’t keep this going. I don’t want anyone else to die because of me.”

Rory folds his arms over his chest.

Rory folds his _giant, veiny, muscled_ arms over his _concrete wall_ of a chest.

Jesus.

“I could just bend parts of you in half until you agree,” he says, seemingly considering the idea.

Cisco nearly chokes on air again. “Or. Okay,  _ or  _ you could just let me go? And go find yourself a normal gun, since they’re everywhere and that’s what most psychos use.”

There is something going on here - a dream, Cisco’s brain keeps insisting - because Rory _smiles_. Well, his mouth tilts up a tiny bit, on one side, which is probably as good as it ever gets.

“’m not psycho,” he says. “Just got some bad impulse control disorders.”

“Oh,” Cisco says, as if that’s the main issue under discussion. Everything feels surreal as it is, so...whatever.

Rory straightens suddenly, his shoulders spreading out all the more broadly. “What if I promise not to kill anybody with it?”

Cisco scoffs out a faint breath, but Rory looks...serious? Earnest? He looks like a lunatic fire-starter, damn it. “I wouldn’t believe you.”

“For real. I only ever killed a few people, and most of ‘em weren’t really...the point. They just died.”

“None of this makes me feel any better about anything, you realize.” Cisco scowls, sitting back against the hard mattress forming the back of the little futon couch. 

“Look.” Rory approaches him, looking unsettlingly reasonable under his mostly-blankness. “I get it, you don’t want nobody hurt, and I hurt people. I get that. But the gun’s important. You fix it again, I promise nobody’ll be hurt in one of its fires. If I need ‘em hurt I’ll just beat the hell out of ‘em instead.”

Cisco would scoff again but Rory is more unsettling the closer he gets. He swallows and looks up (and up) at him. “Snart promises things all the time.”

Rory has a visible reaction to that. Just the name seems to make him tense. His shoulders square, his hands curl into fists. His voice is hard when he answers, practically spitting the words. 

“Snart’s a liar.”

Cisco blinks and draws back reflexively. 

Mental note: don't say Snart’s name again. 

But there’s something in Rory’s eyes, something bright and vivid and hurting. Like betrayal. Whatever happened between the two of them, obviously it isn’t good. 

Rory sucks in a breath and lets it go, and keeps going minus the tension. “He’s good at lying. I’m not. Never have been. That’s why he does...did most of the talking.” 

There's a mystery here, and Cisco's never been good at letting mysteries go. "What happened with you guys? Last I heard from Kendra you were in--"

"The fuck difference does it make? If I want you in my business, Ramon, I'll--"

"--kidnap me in the middle of the night and haul me into it?" 

Rory's fists curl tight. 

_ Padre nuestro, que estás en el cielo...  
_

But when he breathes out, there's a snort of laughter in it. "Shit," he says. "Fair enough."

Cisco's starting to feel sick, going from panic to relief in these repetitive bursts.

"Look. Forget Snart." Rory regards Cisco, the anger draining out though he's still tense. “I’m having good days lately, even without him. Keeping my shit together pretty good. But those come and go, and when they go, it’s bad. I need the gun, because it burns easy. It helps.”

“Have you ever thought about... _not_ burning things? As an alternative to burning things?”

His mild look becomes a scowl again, and Cisco presses back into the futon reflexively.

But Rory lets out another huff of air and turns, dropping onto the futon beside him with a loud, heavy thump that leaves the thing creaking under them.

“I been to shrinks since I was eight years old. Real ones, prison ones, hippie new age ones, religious ones. I tried everything they ever said, and it don’t do any good. I read a thousand books about it, even got a laptop so I could email some of the people who wrote the books. But here I am all the same.”

Cisco’s surprise keeps him quiet. He twists enough to look at Rory (using the movement to scoot a few inches away, just in case).

Rory nods at him, still hard to read, still partially friendly. Like they’re bros talking over their life stories. “You know anybody who isn’t normal who wouldn’t choose to be normal if they could?” 

Well. That’s...surprisingly deep. 

Cisco considers it, and his mind goes right to his own still-growing meta powers, and how despite the help he’s been he still dreads touching people, dreads the world flashing into blue and black and white, dreads sleeping. Three deaths, and he can remember them. Does remember them, every night. Feels his heart being crushed, feels the skin melting off his face while his friends collapse around him in desiccated piles of bone and ash.

He’s a help, he’s got  _ superpowers  _ . But if anyone ever gave him a chance he'd go back to normal without a second thought. 

Barry wouldn’t, he doesn’t think.  But Barry’s one of the lucky few whose abnormalities are utterly amazing, with only a few kinda awkward drawbacks. His abnormalities make him a hero. Cisco, who has the other kind, actually understands Rory's point.

Which is a little galling to realize.

Rory clears his throat, speaks a little more earnestly. Like he realizes this isn’t going the way he wanted and he wants to hurry up and get there before he becomes a rage monster and pounds Cisco into the floor. (Cisco might be reading too much into his tone.)

“Look, had this lady once at an upstate California penn, this health lady who talked to all us assholes about diet and yoga and shit. And she said this thing about how it’s better for you to eat all these little meals every day so you don’t get so hungry you pig out, right? Dumb as shit, because we were a bunch of fuckin’ inmates didn’t have any say over when or what we ate anyway, but she lectured us all the same. Still, that’s what it’s like. If I get the itch and something’s gotta burn, the gun can do it like that.” He snaps his fingers.

Cisco finds himself listening, twisting to watch him as he talks.

Rory looks back at him steadily. “If the gun ain’t working and I gotta wait until I can get things together and find a place and set it up right, it’s gonna be like a pig out, you know? Easier for shit to go bad and plans to fail. So if the gun’s working maybe even less people would get hurt.”

Cisco nods slowly, because it kind of makes sense, in a rationalizing-of-arson kind of way.

But when he opens his mouth to respond he says something unexpected. “What are you doing here? Without Snart, I mean. Whose house is this? Are they…?”

Rory blinks, looking surprised, but grins after a moment. It’s small and heavy, but an actual grin. “Oh, this isn’t anything like what you’re thinking.” He pushes himself off the futon, heavy, and trudges to the little desk his gun’s sitting on. He pulls open a drawer and fishes for something, and tosses it back to Cisco.

Cisco catches it and frowns at Rory before blinking down at his hands. It’s a tiny little trophy, all plastic painted to look brass, with the special garishness that says it was probably from some school.

_ Most Enthusiastic - Michael Rory _

Cisco stares at the name and then up at Rory, his mouth dropping open.

Rory just shrugs, a haul of those heavy shoulders. “I wasn’t never enthusiastic about shit, that was just their version of Miss Congeniality or some shit.”

“This is _your_ house?”

“Aunt and uncle’s. They died. Car crash when I was locked up. They didn’t like me much, but I guess they never took me out of the will, so…”

“So it’s your house.”

Rory blinks, as if he’s never actually thought about it like that. “I guess.”

“You brought me to your actual house?” God, Snart must be rolling over in his...well, wherever he is...right now.

“I only stay here sometimes.” Rory’s shoulders heave up and down again. “Not good at finding other spots like Snart is.”

A lot of things about him seem to be different when Snart’s not around, Cisco can’t help but think. Even the way he approached this whole thing. Okay, yeah, he kidnapped Cisco from his bed, that was rude as hell. But considering that he’s tended to hit first and question later every other time Cisco’s seen him, this whole talking thing is a definite step up.

Maybe it’s harder for him to keep control of himself when Snart’s around to do the thinking for him.

Cisco sighs. This is probably inevitable. “I’ll look at the gun.”

Rory slams a hand down on the desk behind him, and the thump makes Cisco jump in alarm.

But Rory’s grinning.  “You’re okay, Ramon.”

* * *

The garage Rory’s aunt and uncle left behind isn’t well stocked, but Rory seems to have supplemented it a bit. There’s a lot of newer tools, and Cisco tries not to pay attention to the number of blowtorches and solders and things. 

He spots the problem with the connectors easily, so he only needs a solder and some wire cutters to get started. Rory stays with him while he’s working, but doesn’t seem to be worried about Cisco trying to escape. He watches Cisco work, that’s all, gaze on his hands and the gun and the tools.

Cisco, because he is who he is, ends up explaining what he’s doing. Snart said he took his gun apart and put it back together, over and over again, to learn it. He had Mick do the same thing. But it’s not enough to know what parts go where.

“You have to know why,” he explains to his surprisingly-studious audience of one. “I could move a dozen parts around on this thing and it would still work. So could you, if you know what needs to connect to what, and why.”

Mick shakes his head even as he watches Cisco’s hands raptly. “Not gonna get it if I haven't got it yet. Snart’s got a head for shit like this, not me.”

Cisco shoots him a frown. “That’s crap. You learned how the gun goes together, and that’s over a hundred parts. You can memorize that, you can memorize this.”

He holds out the pieces he’s ready to put back into place. “See, okay, you probably saw that this connector came loose. Looks like the port here got jammed. Melted into itself. So you’re screwed. Unless you know that the reason this connector is needed is to move the power from the core into the fuel reservoir. Then it’s just a matter of finding another way to connect those two things, and you’re back in business.”

Mick watches as he rigs up a port for a second connection. It’s tricky, because the fuel is under insanely high pressure, but it’s still not anything he needs major equipment for.

Cisco grins when, a few careful minutes later, he slides the power button on and the gun hums its usual dangerous tune.

Rory pumps a fist, moving up to the table. “There she is.” He takes the gun from Cisco surprisingly gently and holds it up close. He studies Cisco’s work.

Cisco watches him in curiosity. There’s real relief in his eyes, behind the wildness. Maybe he was speaking truth about needing this. Maybe it is some kind of uncontrollable obsession. Cisco’s never done any research on the psychology of arson. Caitlin might know something.

Rory’s not a good person, really he doesn't think. But when he looks up from the gun and grins at Cisco, it’s strangely sweet even on his broad-featured slope of a face. “Thanks, Ramon.”

He ends up returning the smile. “You’re welcome, Heat Wave.”

The nickname makes Mick’s grin stretch out. He gives the gun a big wet kiss on the barrel. “Heat Wave,” he repeats proudly. But he looks down at Cisco, and with a last stroke of the gun’s repaired tank he flips the power back off and sets it down. “Alright, I said I’d take you home.”

Cisco blinks. Even after the seemingly-magnanimous kidnapping he’ll be surprised if it’s really that easy.

* * *

It’s that easy.

He gets to ride in the front passenger seat of the van this time around and everything. Rory doesn’t seem to be worried about Cisco figuring out how to get to his place. He just drives, muttering along with the radio, his mood visibly better.

He pulls right up to the front of Cisco’s apartment, and reaches out before Cisco can open his door. “Hey, uh, sorry about your phone. That was a dick move.”

“It really was,” Cisco answers easily, but he’s smiling as he says it. “It’s cool, I go through them quick and at least you probably didn’t damage the sim card. But that reminds me…” He digs in his pocket and pulls out one of the loose papers he jams in there - they’re inevitable, along with notes written on bar napkins and ideas thought about in the bathroom and sharpied onto TP, whatever. He scans fast until he spots one he won’t need later, and fishes for a pen.

When he holds the paper over to Rory he tries to look stern. “Next time the gun breaks, call. No kidnapping, only calling.”

Rory takes the paper with a surprised flicker of eyebrows up and down.

Cisco hurries to add to that. “But if I hear about anyone burning up in a fire around here…”

“You won’t. I promised. Not ‘cause of me, anyway. Fire’s gonna burn either way, now and then.” Mick relaxes, though, the warning apparently just enough to make the exchange less weird. “You’re a good guy, Ramon, really.”

He smiles as Cisco steps down from the horrible, horrible van, and Cisco glances back at him just to make sure he’s really free to go, no harm no foul.

And he can’t help but notice, before the van gets back into gear and races away, that when Mick smiles for real it’s big and broad and makes his eyes squint into deep tanned lines. It’s surprising to see. Makes him look like a real person.

He shakes his head to get rid of that absurdness, crediting a lack of sleep and the whole surreal evening. He heads up the walk into his apartment building.

Cisco won’t tell anyone about this, he figures. Wouldn't do any good. Kendra swore him to secrecy about the whole time-traveling-space-team thing, so as far as anyone else at STAR knows Mick's been on the loose with a working gun for months now. Nothing’s different about that now. 

Nothing’s different about Cisco coming to the lab in the morning without having gotten any real sleep, either. Anyway, he actually feels kind of okay about it. Maybe he's deluding himself, maybe he only felt a little sorry for Rory because it allowed him to obey Rory's commands instead of getting himself killed by refusing. But he doesn't really think so. 

He believed it when Rory said he tried to get help, to not be the way he is. He even believed when he said that having the gun made it less likely that he would hurt anyone. Maybe it's the world's quickest case of Stockholm Syndrome, but Cisco doesn't think so.

All things considered...it’s really not even the worst night he’s had lately.


	2. Mick the Bank Robber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few days later...

Carmine Rowe is a fucking dick. 

Not like Mick doesn’t know that. The guy’s an asshole, and he’s stupid, and Mick’s already both of those things so working with Carmine is a mistake from minute one. 

But whatever, Mick’s broke and Carmine made him an offer, so here he is. Worst that’ll happen is they go to jail again, and Mick’s never been scared of jail. Besides, he knows some shit about getting away from cops that he didn’t use to know before Snart. 

Still, it’s a fuck-up from the beginning. Carmine doesn’t have a plan: “Just wave your fancy fuckin’ gun and yell at people, dummy, I’ll do the thinkin’.” Like he’s got two brain cells left in that methed-out head. There’s a reason Snart refused to work with anyone who’s got a habit. Mick used to think he was just a snob, but he gets it now. 

Carmine picks morning time to go in, even though everybody knows if you’re gonna hit a bank you gotta go when there’s a crowd and use hysteria to freak everyone out and make them cooperate. Some jobs you wanna sneak and blend in and try to get away without nobody seeing, but banks are different. Snart doesn’t like banks because they’re big and loud and they need panic. He only likes panic when he can use it for some other reason. 

But Snart’s not here. Carmine is. 

Mick doesn’t say anything about it. Not the stupid plan, not anything, which is on him. He’s not a big talker most anytime, and Carmine’s a dumb shit who doesn’t listen anyway. So they head to the bank too fucking early with no plan, and things don’t go tits-up exactly but it’s not a good time. 

There’s two tellers and they’re still half asleep and there’s only one customer in the whole place, so it’s already too weird and close and personal. 

Mick grabs the security guard and shoves the heat gun into his neck while Carmine marches around and demands shit and hauls out a pillowcase for the money like an idiot. 

But money starts coming, so fuck it. 

Mick’s thing in jobs like this is to look like a huge scary asshole so nobody acts out. He can do that on automatic these days, so he zones out a little and listens for sirens or for that little electric hum the fucking Flash brings with him. 

So he isn’t paying attention when the bank manager and some guy walk out from the back where the safety deposit boxes are. 

He doesn’t zone back in until Carmine starts shrieking, like they snuck up on him on purpose, and waves his gun at this manager lady who’s waddling with this belly like she’s ready to pop out a kid right there on his shoes. 

The lady freaks, because that’s what civvies do when you shriek and wave guns, Carmine, you dumb fuck, but the short little guy beside her steps out in front of her, his hands up like he’s trying to calm shit down. 

Mick’s focus gets real sharp real quick. 

Ramon. 

Mother fuck, that’s Cisco Ramon. 

Which means a couple of things. One, the Flash is gonna show up any second. Two, if Carmine’s tweaked out finger squeezes that trigger Mick’s gonna have to kill him right there in that bank. 

Mick glares at the guard he’s holding onto. “Don’t fucking move.” He already has the guy’s gun and phone, and he’s a pasty old dude looks ready to break a hip, so Mick’s not worried. But threats are usually good anyway. Terrify people with words, Snart always says, and you don’t gotta actually do shit. 

The guard nods fast, eager, like he just wants the gun out of his neck. Which Mick does, because now he has to tromp over to Carmine and grab his arm and get his fucking gun to point away from Ramon. 

“What the  _ fuck?”  _ Carmine turns on him like he’s ready to throw a punch. 

Mick glares at him and nods at the counter. “Get the fucking money, asshole.” 

“You get the money. This little bastard needs to learn some manners.” He starts turning on Ramon again. 

Mick glances over at Ramon, who’s looking at him with his face all creased up like there’s a million things zooming through his brain. Ramon’s eyes go to the heat gun and then back to Mick’s face and he actually looks like he’s disappointed. 

Both of them get distracted when Carmine tries to come up on Ramon, gun raised up in his fist like he’s about to pistol whip the kid. 

Carmine’s tall, got broad shoulders, but drugs have him all scarecrowed-out so it ain’t like he’s hard or anything. But he’s got his finger on the trigger of the gun - Snart says never do that unless you’re seriously ready to fire, because no bullshit accidental twitch is worth a lifetime in a cage - and Ramon has all kinds of scared in his eyes but he juts his chin up like he’s ready to talk some shit right back to Carmine. 

Mick sighs. It’s bad luck to turn on your partners, but fuck it. This was a bad idea from the start, and he knows what he’s gotta do. 

“Leave him alone.”

Carmine turns on Mick when he grabs his arm, like he’s so tweaked he thinks he can actually take Mick on. 

Mick lays him down flat with a fist to the jaw. 

Not even the hardest punch he’s ever thrown, but Carmine drops hard and doesn’t move. 

Shit. Well, whatever. Mick looks around, but no sirens yet, no electricity in the air, and everyone’s just staring at him with open mouths and hands raised high, so. 

What a waste of a morning this fucking is. 

He glances at Ramon, who’s gaping down at Carmine like he doesn’t know what just happened. Mick grins faintly and leans into him and holds the gun out. 

Ramon jumps a little, but squints down at the silent gun and notices what Mick’s showing him fast. 

“It’s not even turned on,” he says, his voice low, and his eyes come up to Mick. 

Mick grins, quick and tight. “Made you a promise.” 

And good, okay, that disappointed look is out of Ramon’s eyes. He seems surprised, but in a good way. 

Mick leaves Carmine laid out on the ground. The guy’ll rat him out to the cops, but it’s not like they aren’t already looking for Mick for a thousand other things. He backs up, taking a second too long to enjoy the surprise on Ramon’s face before he turns and heads for the door. 

If he grabs the pillowcase on his way out, hey. He put in the work, and it’s been a tough morning. Might as well get something out of it. 

He doesn’t look back as he goes, though, because he has this fucked-up feeling like if Ramon gives him that big-eyed disappointed look again he’ll put the cash right back down. 

 

* * *

 

There’s an argument going through the cortex, because it’s a day ending in y. All the familiar players are around, and they’re singing their best notes: 

Jay: “Without my speed I don’t know what it is you think I can do here.”

Harry: “Without you reminding us every ten seconds that you don’t have your speed do you really think we’re going to forget and make a plan that involves you actually, heaven forbid,  _ doing _ something?” 

Caitlin: “If you two would stop arguing and work together this might move a little faster. You both know more about Zoom than anyone else--”

Joe: “For all the good that’s done us. They don’t know who he is, why he’s doing all this. Their knowledge doesn’t exactly help us, does it?” 

Barry: “Okay can everyone please just settle down, because none of this sounds like a plan to me.” 

Cisco sometimes pipes in, because every chorus needs a strong tenor. But he started the day being threatened by a lunatic and he’s not really looking to end it in choir practice. 

He’s felt jittery all day, which he explains away by, you know, the threatening of the lunatic and all. But as he watched the ambulance haul away a still-unconscious potential thief and answered a crapload of questions about what happened, and Mick Rory’s part in it, Cisco got this weird twist in his gut that hasn’t gone away since. 

At least Joe finally got the cops off his back. Man, crime scenes are way easier when the Flash shows up first.

He’s listening to the distant sounds of this five-piece chorus rising into a crescendo, debating whether he’s gonna grab Thai on his way home or attempt to make something out of the groceries he bought himself this weekend, when an unexpected note adds to the choir. 

His phone. 

Everyone who ever calls him is standing in this room, so he pulls it out and blinks at it and sees a strange phone number instead of a name, and he wonders…

He twists his chair to face away from the chaos and answers. “Yo.” 

There’s a short, sharp pause followed by a short, sharp laugh. “You sound like a fuckin' nerd.” 

Huh. Cisco’s wondering is confirmed. He smiles faintly. “Got bad news for ya, man.” 

“What, you  _ are  _ a nerd? Yeah, figured that out all by myself.” Mick’s voice is low, a growl, but then he’s always growling. Maybe some vocal cord damage in whatever fire scarred him so badly. Maybe just him. Who knows. 

“Just figured I’d check up, make sure they picked up Carmine’s dumb ass.” 

“Yeah.” Cisco’s still smiling, while remembering Carmine Rowe and cops and guns and Mick’s fist slamming into his partner’s face the moment his partner brought a gun up to threaten Cisco. How the hell can he smile about that?

“He never even woke up after you left.” 

“Glass jaw asshole,” Mick replies, and if a growl can sound cheerful his does. “But hey, look, I didn’t know you were there or that shit woulda never gone down the way it did.” 

Cisco blinks and glances back, but the way Jay and Harry are glowering at each other as Joe talks tells him he’s safe for another few minutes. “You wouldn’t have robbed the bank if you knew I was in there?” 

“Hell no, man, I owe you one.”

“You don’t…” Cisco hesitates then. 

He probably shouldn’t be actively discouraging a criminal from not committing crimes. He shouldn’t be having a casual phone conversation with a criminal at all, actually. He definitely shouldn’t feel at least a little glad that said criminal got away safely with a bag full of cash this morning. 

But Mick...he’s a puzzle, and Cisco has always liked puzzles. He’s violent and angry, but he asked Cisco to help when he needed him. He’s a pyromaniac, but one who, from what he says, has tried at every turn to get help for it. He’s out of control in ways that frustrate him, and Cisco can’t imagine what it’s like to live like that. 

Cisco get annoyed by aspects of his own personality now and then. Everyone does. He hears himself apologizing for things that he shouldn’t apologize for and beats himself up later for making himself the bad guy in his own head. He does things on the spur of the moment that he ends up regretting not thinking through later. 

But he’s never looked at a building and been unable to stop himself lighting a match and setting it on fire. He’s never had a day where he’s had to get angry at himself for actual murder. 

Indirect murder, yes, but not anything his own actions have directly caused. 

Mick is angry and huge and he doesn’t seem to be particularly smart. Without Snart around he’s directionless, from what Cisco can tell. But he kept his heat gun powered down today, and he stopped his partner in crime from hurting anyone. And he said please to Cisco, that one night,  then made him a promise and apparently intends to stick to it. 

So maybe he’s not the person Cisco thought he was. He’s not a good guy by any means, and Cisco still remembers too freshly the way Mick beat on him when he tried to get between him and Dante when they were being held by their little rogue group. 

But Cisco can forgive that. He’s been hurt worse before, and it’s not like he and Mick were on the same side. They were set up to want to fight each other. It was Snart’s plan, Snart’s orders. Snart pulled the trigger against Dante and threatened worse if Cisco didn’t give up Barry’s name. 

Snart is the one he sees in his nightmares. 

Mick he never gave much of a thought about at all. Not until the other night, and an unexpectedly uneventful kidnapping. 

He clears his throat after too long a pause. “That’s good to know,” he says finally. 

“Yeah, well.” Mick sounds gruff. “Snart says you gotta pay what you owe.” 

That makes Cisco snort. “I’m not sure Leonard Snart’s the guy you want to learn morality lessons from.”

“Nah, but he’s smarter than me about a lot of shit. Not everything, but a lot.” 

“Cisco!” It’s a shout from behind him, sharp, from more than one voice. 

Cisco jumps, spinning in his chair and hiding the phone in his lap with the quick reflexes of every kid who ever texted in school, and sees most eyes on him. Harry and Jay are outright glaring, and Barry and Joe look ready to attack the both of them. 

But their eyes are all on him, waiting for an answer to some question he really couldn’t care less about.

Whatever the argument of the day is about, he wants no part of it. He’s tired, he’s annoyed at the whole group of them, and he’s having more fun chatting awkwardly with a pyromaniac anyway. 

So he stares right back at them. “Sausage and jalapeno on mine. Thanks.” He brings his phone back up, looking at them pointedly, and turns in his chair again. “Sorry, what were you saying?” 

“Um, nothin, I don’t think. You okay over there? Need me to bust some skulls?” 

“Tempting.” Cisco grins his amusement that this evil maniac (using both terms loosely) is apparently taking him on as some kind of bodyguarding case. “But nah, I’m cool.”

“People talking shit? Yeah, I get that. You just call me if you need me next time around.” 

Cisco blinks, then laughs. “Don’t tell me you’re actually calling from your real number?” 

“House phone.” Mick sounds like he’s grinning. “You already know where the place is, so fuck it. Nothing to lose.” 

An evil maniac with a house in the suburbs and a landline. Dios mio. 

Cisco glances over when he senses movement. 

Apparently the argument’s breaking up because Barry and Iris are drifting towards him, talking, while the cluster behind them start going their own ways. 

He clears his throat and sits up. “I gotta jet, man. Just...um. Be good?” 

Mick laughs, a low rumble that feels oddly intimate in his ear. “Yeah, I can manage that for a few days, probably. Later, nerd.” 

Cisco grins as he stashes his phone back in his pocket.

What a weird, weird day this has turned out to be. 


	3. Mick the Caller

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next few weeks...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A series of phone calls. 
> 
> This chapter gets dark in a couple of places. I added in some warnings above, but just know that this deals in parts with Mick's past and his pyromania. There's some suicidal ideation, and what could be considered an attempt. 
> 
> It ends okay, though.

 

Cisco makes it almost a full day before he calls the newest number stored in his phone. 

It’s answered fast, but with nothing more than a grunt. Maybe Mick gets a lot of wrong numbers. 

“I told the cops about you,” Cisco blurts into the silence.

“Ramon? You did what?” 

“Yesterday. At the bank. When the cops showed up. I mean I figured they’d check the security tapes anyway, and at least one cop at the CCPD knows that I know you, so it would have looked weird if I hadn’t…”

“Whoa, whoa.” Mick sounds like he’s moving around, and then there’s a heavy thump. Like when he’d thrown himself on that futon the night he kidnapped Cisco. “You told ‘em I was robbing the bank?”

“Yes.” Cisco shuts his eyes, breathes out his confession. 

Because he’s felt so twisty and nervous since then, even had trouble sleeping last night. It took him a few hours tinkering at the lab to realize what that was: guilt. 

He and Mick aren’t...friends, or allies, or whatever. But there’s some kind of understanding there, or there was, and what little Cisco knows about the criminal code tells him that snitching on Mick was a bad move. 

So. Phone call. Confession. Hope that his nervous stomach will finally settle down. 

There’s silence from Mick’s end for a long few seconds, and then a huff of air into the phone. “Wait. Are you...apologizing?”

Cisco blinks his eyes open, looking out at his blessedly empty workroom. “Well. Yeah. I just...it feels like a lousy way to pay you back for stopping that jerk from coming after me.” 

“Ramon…” Mick sounds amused. “I don’t wanna sound like I’m full of myself or anything, but the cops were gonna know it was me either way. Pretty sure they’ve got my face plastered on wanted posters and everything.” 

Cisco frowns. 

“Anyway, Carmine was probably blabbing my name before they even reached a hospital. Which is fine, because I fucked him over so he’s gotta return the favor.” 

He sits back in his desk chair and spinning in a slow circle idly. “So. It’s okay?” 

“Didn’t tell ‘em where I’m staying, did ya?” 

“No! Of course not.”

“Good. House is still in my uncle’s name, nobody’s ever come lookin’ for me here.” Mick sounds like he’s grinning. “So yeah, it’s okay.” 

Cisco lets out a breath and feels the churn in his gut start to settle down bit by bit. 

“You do remember we’re kinda on opposite teams here, right? I mean you don’t owe me nothin’. I never expected you’d lie to the cops or anything.” 

He frowns at that, humming a reply. “Well. We’re not...they’re not  _ opposite  _ teams anymore, really. You were on Kendra’s team, right? And the others that went with you?” 

There’s a pause, and only in that pause does Cisco remember the old mental note not to talk about Snart and whatever might have happened between them. Which that time-traveling space team was probably part of. 

Mick doesn’t snap, though the smile’s out of his voice when he answers. “Were. Not now.” 

He wants to ask about it. He really, really wants to ask. But then he doesn’t. 

This whole thing, it’s  _ weird.  _ Talking to Mick Rory, Heat Wave, dangerous Rogue and pyromaniac, is a weird thing to be doing. They’re not friends. They’re not allies. 

But then...Cisco doesn’t actually have many friends. Not outside of the lab and the team. He’s on a first-name basis with a dozen baristas and delivery people, and sometimes he still Facebook-socializes with some people from school, or old STAR employees who left after the accident. But that’s about it. 

So, whatever. Him having a casual cellphone chat with anyone is weird, whether that anyone is a criminal or not. Cisco’s life is full of secrets and danger and weirdness, he has to find company among people who are already involved in it, or else he’s pretty much SOL. 

Which, hey. Means he can make friends with whichever of those few already-involved people he wants to, damn it.

And if he chooses to never ever say a thing about this budding new friendship to any of his other friends, that’s his right. Right? 

Right. 

He sits up, feeling newly confident about the whole conversation. 

But. “Look, kid, I gotta go. Things to do. We’re cool, alright?” Mick hangs up before newly-resolved Cisco can say anything. 

Auspicious start to a friendship. But that kinda fits, doesn’t it?

 

* * *

 

Mick needs to fucking hang up, because if there’s one thing stupider than what he’s doing, it’s leaving it on a fucking voice mail. 

But Ramon’s recorded message is short and all perky-sounding, and he listens with a smirk on his face and doesn’t hang up before the beep. So, since he’s supposed to talk now, he talks.

“Yeah, kid. Look, if you’ve got any business at Mayer’s Jewelry on 17th and Kline tomorrow, find something else to do.”  

And then he hangs up. 

Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Snart would’ve fucking shot him for that. Bad enough he warns The Flash’s fucking sidekick about a heist, he leaves it on a recording. 

Fuck it. 

He doesn’t need a repeat of that bank job and having to face Ramon’s big sad fucking eyes while he does his thing. If Ramon calls the cops...well, that’s that. 

It’s done. 

 

* * *

 

Harry’s smirk is crystal clear in Cisco’s mind as he marches into the cortex. 

He really needs to vent, to gripe to Caitlin until she laughs and hugs him consolingly and pets his hair in her awkward there-there kind of way. Or find Barry and pace around and threaten to throttle Harry frigging Wells in more and more Wile-E-Coyote-type scenarios until Barry’s red-faced from trying to look disapproving instead of just laughing like he wants to.

But the whole place is empty. 

He pulls out his phone to check the time, and. Oh. That’s why. It’s late. 

On the bright side, that means he’s fine to walk right out of the lab and go home. Maybe get some cheer-up curry on the way. So that’s what he does, grabbing his jacket off the console chair in the cortex and heading right down the corridor towards the exit. 

Harry can have the workroom. He can have whatever he wants. He’d just take it either way, and Cisco’s getting tired of always losing arguments. 

His phone’s already in his hand, so on a whim he opens his contacts. ‘Ace’ is the first name on the list, and if Cisco’s a super-nerd for programming Mick Rory into his phone as a Doctor Who reference, well. So be it. 

Mick answers on the fifth ring, right as Cisco reaches the exit door and is about to hang up. “Yeah, kid.”

The grumble of a voice that’s getting downright familiar to him makes Cisco grin. “How’d you know it was me? You have a landline. With a cord and everything, I’ve seen it.” 

Mick snorts a laugh. “You’re the only one with the number, you fuckin’ snob.” 

“It’s 2015 and there is a cord on your phone, that doesn’t require snobbery to be considered ridiculous.” Cisco beams, though. Only one with the number, that’s kind of funny, isn’t it. 

“Yeah yeah. What’s up?” 

He sighs, loud and gusty, as he gets to his car. “You must’ve been a big guy even as a kid, huh? Teenager, at least.”

“Uh? Yeah, I guess.” 

“Were you one of those bully kids? The smug popular ones with a pack of smirking pals?”

There was a pause. “Is this gonna be a fucked up conversation? I should go grab a drink first.” 

Cisco laughs. “You’d have to put the phone down to get it, wouldn’t you? Because  _ cord _ .” 

“Jesus christ. Hang on.” 

Cisco is halfway to his apartment when Mick talks again. Granted it’s not that far from the lab to his place, but he still grins bigger the closer he gets. 

“Alright, I’m all set here. So what’s the question? Was I a bully?” 

“Yep. I mean, big guy, kinda fond of violence...” 

“Big guys don’t have to be bullies, Ramon. That’s one of the advantages.” 

“So that’s a no?”

“That’s a no. I was more the big psycho kid that everyone else stayed the hell away from.” 

Cisco sighs. “Good,” he says sincerely. 

Mick chuckles, a low rumble through the car’s speakers. “Someone steal your lunch money today?” 

“Metaphorically, kind of. I just. Really hate people like that, you know? People who take whatever they want and laugh at you for not being willing to fight harder than they are to keep it.” 

“I’m a thief, Ramon.” 

“Well. That’s different. You steal for, like, money or whatever, right? I’m talking about the kind of jerk who has his pick of any place in a huge empty building but takes the one room someone else already claimed, just because he’s a jerk.” He clears his throat. “Metaphorically.”

“Sounds like someone metaphorically needs to get his ass kicked.” 

And okay, true as that might be Cisco’s starting to feel a little guilty. It’s probably disloyal or something, talking crap about Harry to one of their quote-unquote ‘enemies’. Harry’s going through a lot. Maybe it’s not his fault that he doesn’t know how to be stressed without taking it out on innocent, undeserving Ciscos. 

“When I was a kid,” Mick says suddenly, “I was the weird one. I had this thing about the cold, used to wear a coat all year, even indoors. Kids would give me shit about it, but fuck ‘em. This one guy, though. Fuckin’ Bobby...shit, I can’t even remember his last name. He’s the kinda guy you mean, with the pack of friends laughing at his shit and everything. He was always trying to fuck with me. Knew I hated being cold so he’d come up behind me at lunch and ‘accidentally’ pour ice down my shirt, that kind of shit.” 

Cisco reached his building and slid into a spot, taking his phone off the car speakers and putting it up to his ear again. He made the walk from the car to the building slowly, listening to Mick carefully. 

“So one day we go on this field trip, right? Slaughterhouse.” 

“Slaughterhouse?” 

Mick laughed. “Kid, this was almost thirty years ago, in Bumfuck, Iowa. So yeah, slaughterhouse. And I’m just trailing along behind everybody, bored outta my skull, not paying attention. And this fucker, Bobby, fuckin’ plows into me out of nowhere and rams me into the side of this big fucking industrial freezer. He gets the door open, shoves me in - he was a big fucker, and I wasn’t all that strong yet - and fuckin’ locks the door.”

“Holy crap.” Cisco, stalled outside the front door of his craphole building, unfreezes and moves inside. “So what happened?” 

“I freaked the fuck out, that’s what happened. Got myself out of there after a while, but it was messed up. I was...anyway. I missed school for a few days. My uncle worked twelve hour shifts, so it was easy enough to slip out of the house and head to the school right before it got out. I followed Bobby home to see where he lived. Couple nights later I went back in the middle of the night, and burned that motherfucker down.” 

“Holy…” Cisco shuts the door to his apartment, leaning back against it, startled and more than a little scared of all this. “Jesus, Mick. Was he inside? His family?” 

“Uh, yeah. That was the point. I mean, you gotta understand, it wasn’t anything like rational. I’m fucked up to begin with, and that freezer on top of it...whatever. All I knew was a fire would finally warm me back up, and Bobby was the source of all the cold, so it only made sense that he was the one that had to burn. I know it’s fucked, okay? I got years of shrinks behind me, I know. It wasn’t even the first time someone died ‘cause of me. Sure as shit wasn’t the last. I know what that makes me, okay? But you asked me about bullies, and that’s my story. That’s how I feel about fuckers like that. They should burn.” 

Cisco locks the door behind him, and his hand is unsteady. He gets his coat off an arm at a time, drops it over the back of his couch, and stands there. He’d meant to grab dinner on the way home, but he let the call distract him, and now he’s not anything like hungry. 

He heads back to the bedroom instead. Some sleep, a stop for coffee in the morning, and some perspective courtesy of a man who Cisco really needs to stop forgetting is a legitimately violent killer. 

That’ll make tomorrow better. 

He almost forgets he’s in mid-conversation, because there’s nothing but silence coming from the phone. 

He needs to sort some things out. Research, maybe. Decide if he can actually handle continuing conversations with a man whose particular mania made him a repeat murderer when he was still a child. 

Still, for all his horror at Mick’s story, Cisco can’t quite put out of his mind that this is the same man who promised him he wouldn’t let his fires kill anymore, and has so far kept that promise. Whatever Mick was made into as a child, it wasn’t like he chose it for himself. 

Nobody would choose it, he’d said that first night, when he came for Cisco to fix his gun. Nobody who was abnormal wouldn’t choose to be normal if they could be. 

He sighs and sits down on the edge of his bed in the darkened bedroom. “I used to get beat up by this girl in high school.”

“Jesus.” Mick’s voice comes out choked, like he’s startled. Like maybe he figured Cisco had hung up on him or something. Or maybe he’s trying to sound amused. Hard to tell. 

“No, Amber. Amber Gilly. She was a junior on the track team. She was huge, okay, and I was a fourteen year old freshman who skipped grades and who everybody hated for whatever reasons. She made me do her homework like all year. Three different classes. I didn’t even argue with her, but she still shoved me around every time she saw me, so I’d remember my place or whatever.” 

“I’m thinking this story’s gonna end different than mine.” 

Cisco smiled faintly. “I came up with a plan over Christmas break. Amber lived for track, that was her thing. And my brother, he was on the football team. He griped to our folks one night that he was getting Cs in Algebra, and that if you flunk even one class at that school you’re cut off from varsity sports. So, boom. Plan. I looked into the classes I was doing Amber’s work in, found out that teacher for her history class gave final projects instead of exams, a big paper I knew she’d make me write for her. So I did the math, worked out how much that final grade would be worth and how badly she’d have to do the rest of the year in order to flunk. And for the rest of the year I planned every single assignment for that one class. She’d get pissed off when she got Bs and Cs sometimes, but I told her I was just trying to be credible, and since every other class was an A she didn’t sweat too much.” 

“Nerd revenge. Huh. I guess it’s more subtle, but you gotta play the long game with that kinda shit.” 

“I was like four feet tall when I was fourteen, okay? The long game was the only game I had.” 

Mick snorted, but sounded a little less thick. 

“So end of the year assignment comes. The Bacon Rebellion. She’s gotta do a ten page paper about it. I’m thinking, okay, I should write ten pages about pork products, totally flunk her out. But nah, sometimes she looks things over before she hands them in. So instead what I write is a detailed and pretty nuanced account of the plot of Star Wars, with all the names changed. Nathaniel Bacon, humble farm boy, learning the ways of the Force. It was pretty damned amazing, if I say so myself.”

“She flunk out?” 

“Better. The teacher called her out in class for the obvious load of crap that essay was, and I guess he just tore into her. She got so mad she told him flat-out that she didn’t even write it so he should just leave her alone. So the whole truth came out, and they expelled her.”

“Nice.” 

Cisco hummed. “Well. Turned out she moved to Illinois to live with her dad and finish school there, and got a huge athletic scholarship into the U of Chicago. Qualified for the Olympics. Big star.” 

There’s a pause. “Our stories have shit-ass endings, Ramon. The fuck is wrong with us?” 

As Cisco laughs in response, he knows already that as messed up as Mick is and as dangerous as this whole thing might be, he’s not going to stop these calls. 

  
  


* * *

 

Mick’s in a shit mood and he’s been in a shit mood for days. He really wants to pin it on Cisco Ramon and his stupid questions, but that’s bullshit. 

Hell, if he’s being honest he’s been in a fuck-ass mood since he got kicked off the ship. Before, even. Not like there’s any mystery about why, either. 

He went up for one reason: Snart. Snart wanted to go. Steal their way through history, whatever. Snart didn’t give a shit about the team, Savage, any of it. 

Until he did. Until everything fucking changed. 

Snart’s such a fucking asshole. He should have understood. It was his fucking rule: if you fuck over your partner, or your team, then you’re giving them permission to fuck you over in return. Simple as that. 

And Rip fucked Mick over. Hard. 

Snart should have had Mick’s back. Instead he took him out to a fucking field like he was a stray dog. Looked at him like one, too. Talked some bullshit, had the nerve to look like he was upset by it all. 

Bullshit. Len Snart never did a goddamn thing he didn’t want to do. Never. 

Mick knew what it was, he just didn’t want to admit it to himself. Simple truth was that Snart found himself a better team, so he cut off the old one. Hacked Mick off, like a bad leg. 

Thirty fucking years, almost. Cut off.

He can’t stop thinking about it lately, and he’s so pissed off that he can’t stop thinking about it that he wants to fucking kill someone. 

He wants to watch something burn. 

He gets out to the waterfront before he even thinks about what he’s going to do. He parks near one of the busy warehouses where guys are working all night, so the van won’t look suspicious. 

And then he stares out at the darkness for a long time, feeling his hands shaking on his lap. 

Luckily Ramon answers fast, even late as it is. 

“Hello?” 

“Yeah.” It’s all Mick can say. Doesn’t mean anything, but he’s bad at this shit. 

“Mick?” Kid sounds surprised. “Where are you?” 

“Out.” Mick’s got a burner phone, one of those cheap gas station jobs. Ramon’s the only number he plugged into it when he got it. He doesn’t fucking know anybody else anymore. 

“Ooookay,” Ramon says slowly. “Something’s wrong.” 

Mick wouldn’t know where to start if he even wanted to talk about it. “Tell me how you know Kendra.” 

“Kendra? Why...did something happen to--” 

“Ramon. Look. I just.” He scowls out at the darkness past the dim lights of the parking lot. Black sky, black water, lights twinkling some places but it’s mostly dark. He can imagine an orange glow spread out, spread everywhere, clouding out the stars with smoke but lighting up the pier, the little restaurants, the parks, the trees. Heat and flame, crackle and glow, until everything really is as black as it looks in the darkness. 

“Can you just talk?” He says finally, shutting his eyes trying to blot out the glow that’s coming from his own twisted fucking brain. 

Another pause, but Ramon listens. He clears his throat. “Sure,” he says. “Kendra. Right. Well, you may not believe it, but we went out for a little while. 

A flare of surprise makes his mouth twist upward. “You hooked up with the bird god lady?” 

“Damn right I did.” Ramon sounds proud. Mick doesn’t blame him. “I mean, just for a couple of weeks, before that whole bird god part screwed everything up. We’re still friends, at least. Story of my life.” 

“You should get back in there. You know her dude got axed.” 

“She told me. But nah. I mean she’s gone most of the time now anyway. And it’s not really...I can’t help but think, you know, I’d always be second choice. Feels kinda pathetic...not to mention  _ creepy _ , being all ‘hey, Mr. Destiny’s dead, whooooo’s ready to settle?’” 

Mick laughs. It startles out of him, a short bark that vanishes fast. But it feels good. It soothes something down inside his head. 

Not enough, but something. “You know the old guy, too, right?” 

“Professor Stein? Yep. Not, y’know, biblically or anything, but. I helped him not-die before we found Jax and sorted them out.” He pauses, but goes on without Mick having to ask. “I kinda miss him, actually. He was good to me. Helped me figure some things out. Jax, too. It was nice having someone around who actually realized how awesome the whole superpowers thing was.” 

He pauses, but Mick can’t say anything. He’s sat back, leaning against the headrest with the stuffing coming out of it, trying to focus on anything except where his mind keeps going. 

“So,” Cisco says after a moment. “Who else? Ray, I totally know Ray, we’re pals. We’ve named bad guys together, that’s a bond for life. And Laurel’s sister, Sara. I never met her but I made her a costume. I dunno if she needs costumes, time-traveling and all, but.” 

Mick glares out at the darkness. “What about Rip.” 

“Rip, the spaceship captain guy? Nope, never met him.” 

“Good. Don’t. He’s a fucking prick.” There’s real hate in those words, hate Mick can’t swallow back or smooth over. He’s not graceful like that, not good at covering up how he feels. 

But Cisco doesn’t say anything about it. He doesn’t even pause all that long. “Kendra hasn’t said much. All I know is he, like, tears through time and space, and his name is ‘Rip’. Which is so corny that even _ I _ think it’s corny, and I happily call a grown man Captain Cold, so.” 

Mick wants to snort at that but. Fucking Snart. He grimaces and drops his eyes down to the dashboard of the van. 

The van. Piece of shit from the seventies. Carpet in the back, leaky oil filters. Stuffing coming out of the seats. Tank full of gas. 

It would light up so fucking fast. 

He doesn’t notice that Cisco’s gone silent until he talks again, soft in Mick’s ear. “Mick? Are you okay?” 

Mick shuts his eyes, stops imagining the dashboard melting, the hood bursting open, heat shattering the glass of the windshield. 

“He was s’posed to kill me,” he says out into the darkness. Easier to talk if he doesn’t focus on the fact that someone’s listening. Even easier when Cisco is just sudden, stark silence in his ear. 

“Snart. I guess Rip gave the order. Can’t imagine anyone else who would. But all those friends of yours, they didn’t say a word.” He is so fucking angry sometimes he can’t see straight, but talking about it makes it press down on him. Makes him feel tired. “He didn’t do it, obviously. Fired that gun but not right at me. Turned and walked away, though. Left me here alone.” 

“ _ Why? _ ” is all Cisco says, all innocent surprise and horror. 

“Because I’m a fucking psycho,” he answers tersely. “Rip only ever wanted Snart, and once he told Snart it was them or me, Snart picked them. Because I’m dangerous. Which, jesus, I can’t even fucking argue with that, can I?” 

He wants the van to burn. He wants it gone, he wants heat and flame and ash and smoke. 

He wants to be inside while it goes. And it’s getting really hard to remember why he’s even fighting the urge. 

“I’ve always been this way,” he says out loud. “Since I was eight fucking years old. Nothing stops it. And Snart  _ knows  _ it. Always has. But he holds it against me, like it’s my choice. Comes to me when he needs something to burn. Brought me the heat gun, you know? Handed it over, said ‘you like playing with fire, Mick, that’s what I need’. And then fucking tried to walk away when I lost control. Thirty years almost he’s known what I am, but he still...he puts a fucking match in my hand and then acts all outraged when something burns. What the fuck is that?”

He listens to the silence, well aware that there’s no answers waiting for him. “You know the fucked up thing? I know why he left me alive. He knows he’s not gonna be on that fucking tin can forever. He knows it’ll end, and he’ll be back here, and he’ll need me again. He’ll tell me I owe him for not putting me down like a dog that night. And I’ll listen. Because he’s the closest thing to family I’ve got.” He blows out a breath.

But it’s easing something in him. His glare isn’t so hot, now that the words are out there. Now that’s he’s gotten some of this shit out into the air and away from him. 

Still, even with the fire dimming down inside his head, he still looks down at the insides of that van and aches to watch it go up in flames. That’s bad. That’s worse than wanting it because he’s mad. 

“Something’s gonna burn tonight.” He says it out loud, because he knows himself, and he knows that this craving is going to resolve itself into action he can’t fucking stop, it’s just a matter of time. 

Ramon talks suddenly, his voice tight. “I don’t know how to talk you out of something like this.” 

Mick manages a slight smile. “Didn’t call you to talk me out of it, kid. Just to talk to me for a while.”

“Okay.” 

Mick blinks. “Okay?” 

“Okay. Well. Is this gonna be...how’d you put it that one time? A  _ snack _ kind of fire, or like a whole feast?” 

Mick frowns, but remembers that blonde with the pantsuits and the bright white teeth trying to teach a bunch of prisoners about yoga and diet and shit, and he gets it. “I don’t know.” 

“Don’t hurt anybody.” 

He smirks. “Didn’t even bring the gun with me, so don’t worry about it. Nothing’s gonna come back on you.” 

“Mick. Don’t  _ hurt  _ anybody.” 

He’s right in the middle of a half-empty parking lot. There’s a risk other cars could get damaged, but fuck if he can bring himself to care. He can go up, for good, finally, in a toxic cloud of burning shag carpet. Finish the job the fires started on his skin years ago.

He doesn’t have the heat gun, but he knows fire inside and out. He’s always got matches, a lighter, there’s road flares in the back of the van. The thing’s a death trap anyway, all he has to do is crack a window and one match will do the job. 

He doesn’t have to move from where he’s sitting. 

“Mick!” Ramon’s loud in his ear. 

Mick stirs a little. “Mm?” 

“Don’t kill anyone. You promised me.”

“I told ya, I didn’t even bring your fucking gun with--” 

“I’m not worried about the gun, I’m worried about my friend!” 

He cracks a smile, but the phone’s just distracting him now, and there’s bigger things on his mind. “Don’t. I’m a pro.” 

Cisco starts to say something else, but Mick shuts the cheap little burner phone to cut the call off, and tosses it in the passenger seat. He reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out a book of matches. Cheap ones, from a piece of shit bar he goes to sometimes, but fire all the same. 

He winds down the window a crack, and leans over to lower the passenger seat window, too. 

The phone rings on the seat. 

He rolls his eyes, but ignores it. 

It’s Snart who he thinks about as he strikes a match. Maybe that’s fucked up, or maybe he should have expected it. Snart looking at him like Mick was the one to blame for everything. Like Mick gave him no choice but to murder him in a fucking forest. 

He fucked up. Wasn’t like he didn’t know that. Wasn’t like he felt all that bad for it, even. There was no way he was gonna be Rip’s fucking lackey anymore, but he shouldn’t have taken it out on the rest of them. 

But come the fuck on. Some pack of heroes, taking him out to be executed like prison isn’t a fuckin’ thing. Like there isn’t a damn thing about him worth saving. 

Maybe there isn’t. Who knows anymore. 

The match burns down fast in his fingers, because it’s a cheap thin piece of crap. He watches it, and Snart and Sara and the whole team fade away into a bright yellow glow. The heat from the slight flicker of flame starts to heat up his fingertips, and he shuts his eyes to feel it better, breathing in the smell of sulfur. 

Fire is the great equalizer. It burns the good and the bad just the same, the rich and the poor, the killers and the victims. Fire isn’t moral, isn’t obedient, isn’t ever wrong. It just is. Everything in the world’s a fucking debate these days, all a matter of gray areas and right and wrong. Fire, though. Fire doesn’t listen, fire doesn’t give a shit. Fire shuts that shit down. Light a fire and suddenly everyone’s done talking. 

His jaw twitches as the burn against his fingertips gets sharp and bright, but then it vanishes. Fucking cheap match went out. 

He tosses it behind him, lets it smoke on the carpet behind the driver’s seat. And he lights another one. 

The phone rings again, which makes him huff out a breath. Not even a strong one, but it makes the second match goes out, too. 

He lights a third one, tilts it downward so the flame gets bigger, and then holds it over his shoulder and drops it onto that carpet. 

There’s a few seconds where he’s not sure, but then an acrid smell hits his nose, and he sits back and lets out a sigh. 

The carpeting is old and cheap and acrylic, thick. It goes up fast. The back of the van’s mostly empty, but there’s a little storage box towards the back that’s got some tools in it. Flares. A gallon of gas, just in case. Soon as the fire reaches that and heats it hot enough, story’s over. 

Or it will rise up the back of the driver’s seat first, maybe. Lick out at the exposed pieces of foam stuffing, catch, rise and spread and burn. Tickle the back of his head, his shirt, his neck. Heat him up. Make him warm again, really  _ hot  _ for the first time since Snart’s cold gun destroyed the grass at his feet. 

The phone rings, one more time, and he growls and reaches over, grabbing it. He drops it back behind him and feels a sharp heat as his hand nearly touches the growing flames as he lets the phone go. 

Ramon will be pissed, probably. But that’s right. Mick pisses people off, it’s what he does. He doesn’t get to hold onto things. Snart stuck around longest, but they spend as much time apart as together, and they only ever reconnect time after time because Snart needs something. And that’s done now, anyway. 

Ramon doesn’t get it. He won’t ever get it. He’s not the type. 

_ I’m not worried about the gun, I’m worried about my friend. _

Kid’s an idiot, helping a deadly fucker like Mick. Chatting with him. Calling him a friend. It’s fucked up, and now he’s gonna see that, and maybe next time he won’t be so quick to make deals with psychos.

Mick didn’t promise him never to burn. Just not to kill anyone with that gun. He isn’t breaking any promises. He wouldn’t even care if he was: promises are crap like everything else people tell each other. 

There’s orange peeking up between the two front seats now, and heat rising up hard and strong behind him. He drops his head back against the exposed stuffing that’s gonna light up any second, and he breathes in and out, feeling the head moving down into his lungs. 

Mick didn’t know what it was exactly that made him spot a shrimpy new kid getting a beat down and decide, fuck it, he’s not letting it go down that way. He’s got no idea why Snart of all the kids he in juvie was the one he sided with. He’s got no idea why Ramon’s big hurt brown eyes made him lay a beating on Carmine Rowe, or call him on the phone later, and then again and again. The kid is messed up, listening to Mick talk about burning people alive and then telling him some story about some bitch at his school, like they were the same. 

Then again, maybe that’s a reason right there. There’s gotta be something messed up about Ramon. Just like there was something messed up about Snart when he was facing down a shiv and a pack of kids like he didn’t care if he lived or died as long as he could show them he hated them either way. 

The fire licks at his jeans. Mick looks down and watches it, watches the flames spread to the floorboard of the passenger seat and sniff around Mick’s feet trying to find room to spread under him, too. 

_ I’m worried about my friend. _

Damn it. 

God  _ damn _ it. 

 

* * *

 

He has to steal a car to back home, because his uncle’s place is so far out. It’s an old sedan that rattles when it goes over 40. He’ll worry about whether to hide it or alter it enough to keep it later. 

The sun’s starting to come up by the time he pulls up and tucks the car in out of sight from the road. He smells like smoke, pungent like cheap acrylic carpet burning. But there isn’t a scratch on him. 

He doesn’t know if he feels good or bad about that, yet. 

He peels his coat off, takes in a singed patch on the sleeve, and sighs. He goes to the phone. 

Ramon answers before the first ring’s even done. “You  _ asshole _ .” 

“Yeah.” Mick grins faintly. His voice is even rougher than usual. He’s gonna be coughing the smoke out of his lungs for a few days. “Kinda figured you knew that about me already.” 

“Well thanks for driving the point home.” He heaves a heavy sigh. “Look, I get it. You’re you, you do the fire thing. I just...you sounded really low. I was worried you’d...I dunno. Do something stupid.” 

Mick laughs, like it’s funny. “You didn’t sic your pet hero on me, though?” 

There’s a pause. “No. I guess I figured you had to sort it out yourself.” 

“That’s dangerous. Ain’t exactly known for making good choices, kid.” 

“Well...did you? This time?” 

Mick smiles, and this time it’s sincere. He can answer honestly, and that makes him something like proud. “Nobody got hurt.”

Another sigh comes through the phone. “Well then. Okay. Yes. Good.” 

“You sound tired, kid, go take a nap or something.” 

“Hah, yeah right. Duty calls. You can nap for me.” 

Mick listens to him, because he feels heavy and beat down a little bit. 

He gets a couple hours shut-eye, and has this fucked up dream about spotting Ramon in juvie, and stepping in only to find the kid threatening him is Snart, and the shiv is his gun. It’s a dream, so whatever, it phases into him eating prison ‘food’ while some sparkling clean lady who looks like Ramon’s friend Snow yells at him about eating more snacks. 

And then he wakes up. 

Dreams, man. 

He hears the phone in the front of the house, that’s what wakes him, and he trudges out to pick it up. 

“A friend of mine who works with the cops says there was a fire near the pier last night.” 

“Uh huh?” 

“If you’d told me what you wanted to burn was that piece of crap van of yours I might have come help.” 

Mick laughs, long and hard.


	4. Mick the Consultant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fire’s gonna burn either way, now and then.

There’s still smoke, still embers glowing in the debris, even the morning after the fire. 

The cops moving around the perimeters are quiet, solemn. Firemen are mostly done with their immediate work, but the two trucks left on the scene aren’t going anywhere for a while yet. 

There’s nothing for a police CSI to do, but Barry hangs around. He can’t help but feel utterly defeated by every aspect of this disaster. 

This fire, the growing number of people unaccounted for who are probably dead somewhere in the three stories of hollowed-out black...it’s not his fault. Even at his most despairing Barry can’t see a way to blame himself for it. By the time the fire was called into 911 and the Flash was alerted, the building was already a loss. 

He couldn’t even get through the door, much less rescue people. 

It’s a genuine tragedy. The fire was sheets of solid heat, unnatural in its scope and acceleration. Speed is no match for heat, and though he could have forced himself to tear through the building he moment he got there the night before, let it burn at his skin and his suit as he plowed through, he knew that nobody who was still inside was alive to save. 

The CCFD has taken over the scene, of course. Barry - in his regular clothes and his regular duties as CSI - hasn’t even been allowed close. Even after the fire is extinguished there’s too much risk to let anyone in. Structural damage, pockets of heat ready to reignite. 

All that’s happened between the fire going out and the sun coming up is the gathering of huge crowds of people. Media, cops, federal agents, more media. And citizens, gathering to watch the show, or to check on friends and family who won’t ever be seen again. 

It’s heavy. The air is thick with it, every face solemn or horrified. The cops move slowly and whisper when they talk to each other. The firefighters stand in clusters and stare out at the building, their arson investigators on phones and laptops and taking measurements of things even Barry isn’t sure about. 

Tragedy. It happens everywhere. Central City has the Flash, but the Flash can’t protect against fires he hears about too late. He can’t keep the whole city alive. 

Doesn’t stop him from feeling the weight of this, even as he knows there was nothing he could do to stop it. 

“Barry.” 

Barry greets Joe with a frown that matches the one on Joe’s face. They’ve talked already - Joe knows Barry was out there in costume, and didn’t stand a chance, and they’ve already gone through the reassurance conversation. 

Joe’s here as a cop, not a dad. “The arson team’s going to head this investigation, but they’re going to need you. Seems right now none of them have much of a clue how this could happen. The fire was too fast, too big, too hot.” 

Barry sees his worry in his face. “Metahuman?” 

“Who knows? It’s possible, and they know it’s possible so they’re already talking like that’s what’s happening here. But there’s other options.” Joe sends Barry a meaningful look. “We already know one non-meta who could be involved in something like this.” 

Heat Wave.

Mick Rory. Barry scowls and nods, looking back at the smoking building. Snart promised him...but Snart broke the promise. Then broke out of prison, and vanished. Besides, Rory never promised anything. Rory is insane, and has Cisco’s gun. Absolute heat, Cisco said. 

Damn it, if his gun did this Cisco’s going to lose it. This is huge, bigger than anything the Rogues have ever done. This is dozens of people, dead. This is millions in damage and children who won’t grow up, and people asleep in their beds who never had a chance to get away. This is national, international news. 

Cisco doesn’t deserve this. 

“I’ll get him,” Barry says out loud, a promise. He looks over at Joe. “Whoever it is. If it’s Rory, if it’s a new meta. I’ll get him.” 

Joe smiles faintly, pride and some kind of sadness in his eyes. He claps Barry on the shoulder. “I know.” 

 

* * *

 

“It’s not Rory.” 

Barry blinks at Cisco’s vehemence. “All I said was there’s a chance.” 

“And I’m telling you, there’s no chance.” Cisco doesn’t seem devastated by possibilities. He seems annoyed, troubled, but not guilty in any way. 

Which is good, of course, but surprising. Cisco’s guilt complexes tend to be as thick as Barry’s. 

“Did you see something? A vibe, or…?” 

“Nope.” Cisco hasn’t looked up from his monitor since he tapped into the fire investigator's initial reports. His eyes move constantly, scanning, comparing the reports to their overhead shots of the building, the satellite images of the fire stored through the night. 

He looks up after another minute, maybe feeling Barry’s eyes on him. “Look, whoever did this, it was deliberate. It was meant to happen fast, at night, as people slept. This had to be planned out, and it was meant to kill people. And that’s not...it doesn’t fit Mick’s style. Right?” 

“‘Mick?’” Barry peers at him. “Whatever. I’m not taking him off the suspect list yet. Whatever did this, it definitely wasn’t natural. Right now the only theories are the heat gun or a metahuman.” 

Cisco frowns at the monitors. “They’re already talking about a lack of burn patterning on the walls and floors in this first report, and they’ve barely got inside. The heat gun would leave patterns everywhere. This makes it look like the fire hardly had to travel. Like the entire place went up at once, but without any kind of initiating explosion. Complete spontaneous combustion, if that was a thing that happened to whole buildings.” 

Barry makes his way around to look at the reports. He’s seen them, and he’ll see them more at work with whatever updates come in, but it never hurts to have a visual aid. “So...metahuman.” 

Cisco sighs. “I don’t know enough to say one way or another.” He sits back, pondering. 

When he gets lost in thought the way he does Barry can always see his brain in motion. It’s one of the most striking things about Cisco. He always seems casual and careless about everything, but his mind is a powerful, never-still thing. 

Cisco stands up abruptly. “I gotta make a call.” 

Barry opens his mouth, but shuts it and watches him go. He sits down in the chair Cisco just left behind, and settles in to look at the satellite imagery Cisco’s got pulled up. 

 

* * *

 

“I didn’t do that,” is how Mick answers his phone, voice quick and tense. 

“Oh, yeah, I know.” Cisco figured Mick would know about the fire already. It’s all over the news, even the national news. “I’m calling for some advice.” 

There’s a pause. 

“Mick?”

“Oh. Uh, right. Advice about what?” 

 

* * *

 

Mick’s got no fucking clue why he’s here. He knows it’s dumb as fuck, and if he ends up in jail because of it Snart will rip him a new one if he ever comes back. Which he’ll deserve, because this is  _ dumb as fuck.  _

Not that he gives a single steaming shit what Snart thinks about anything. Not anymore.

The cop’s holding a gun on him like Mick’s gonna go nuts and start tearing heads off any second, and the Flash in his fucking red suit is standing there with his hands in fists like he’s hardcore or something. 

There’s two ladies staring at him, and shit, okay, Mick recognizes one of them, Snow. He kidnapped her once. Oops. And some nerdy tall older dude all in black stands in the back with his arms folded like he ain’t got time for any of this shit. 

Unfriendly pack of fuckers. Mick doesn’t mind that so much, he’s spent more than a few years in jail. At least he knows where he stands right off with these people. 

Ramon’s got his hands stuffed in his pockets, looking nervous, as he stands beside Mick and faces the others down. Looks a lot like he’s picked a side against his pals. Which is weird, but okay. He’s the reason Mick’s there, after all, it’s kinda nice that the guy’s got his back. 

“So.” Ramon’s winding down a rambling answer to the ‘why is he here’ that the cop busted out same time he drew his gun. His pals aren’t looking any less suspicious. “That’s it. We need an expert, and Mi...Rory’s an expert.” 

The Flash looks pissed, as pissed as a smooth-jawed skinny twerp in a red costume’s ever gonna look, anyway. “We don’t need an expert, we just need to know if this was a metahuman or not.” 

Ramon rolls his eyes. “And are you magically gonna figure that out on your own anytime soon?” 

The Flash stares hard at him. 

Ramon claps Mick on the arm. “He’s here, okay? He’s not armed, and I promised him he’d walk out again without interference if he showed up. So we might as well use the help, right?”

The tall skinny guy in the back speaks up, which draws most of their focus off Mick, thank fuck. “It’s not a completely invalid theory. Security firms hire reformed thieves all the time. Tech companies work with hackers. Consulting a criminal isn’t unheard of.” He sweeps his eyes over Mick. 

Something about the smirk on his face reminds Mick of Snart. Something  _ else  _ about it makes Mick really want to stomp over there and knock some of his teeth out, whether he’s being okay about this or not. 

“Right!” Ramon speaks fast, like he’s surprised by the support. “So we should--”

“If the criminal actually knows what he’s talking about, of course,” the nerd plows over Cisco, eyes still on Mick like he very much doubts Mick’s one of those kinds of criminals.

Cisco clears his throat, sounding annoyed but used to being talked over. “I’ve got the pictures on the monitors, so I guess you’ll see if he does or not. Are we letting him through or are we wasting more time?” 

They let him through, but the cop’s gun stays in his hand - though it points down at the ground - and the Flash doesn’t relax at all. The older douchebag smirks.

Mick ignores them all, because what the fuck ever. He’s there for Cisco, so he sticks to Cisco, following him to the computers and dropping into a chair when Ramon points. 

“I don’t know how much these pictures will help, but.” 

He gets the screens going, and there’s a shelled-out hulk of a building. Mick whistles, instantly fascinated. The news showed a lot, and he watched it for a long time, but these pictures are way better.

He can’t take his eyes off the images. “What d’you wanna know, anyway?” 

“Anything. Big question is could it have happened naturally or would it take some superpower--”

“Just tell us how it started. If you can.” 

Mick _can_ look up at that, at the impatient asshole all in black who keeps cutting Ramon off. He glances over at Cisco, sees his mouth crease and then relax again. 

“Just…” Cisco leans in to show Mick where to click to go from picture to picture. “Anything,” he says again, quieter, like he doesn’t want that interrupting douchebag to hear. 

Mick Rory is a big violent dumbass. Everybody knows that. It shows on his face. He’s had a hard life, the kind of life that means he doesn’t know a lot about a lot. 

But he knows fire. 

He knows what it does, how it moves. He knows the way it eats at things, the way it dances and travels and grows and then shrinks again. He knows how to look at a wall and see the patterns. He’s not some fucking  _ arsonist _ , but it’s not hard to tell whether something happened deliberately or on accident. It’s not hard to tell when an accelerant is used. 

He looks at the photos - they’re all from the first floor, apparently the feds were too chickenshit to climb up and take other shots. But he already sees what he needs to know about these shots. 

“You need to go down.” 

“What do you mean?” 

He glances at Cisco and gestures at the shots. “The fire started below this. See this?” He points at the soot patterns on the walls. “This is climbing flame, not a starter pattern. There a basement to this place?” 

Cisco looks over at the Flash. 

The Flash shrugs. “Probably, it’s an old apartment building, most of them have at least one sublevel.” 

“Nobody got any pictures from down there?” Mick looks over at him, annoyed. Why would they focus on the first floor when the story ain’t even being told there? Doesn’t take a genius to see nothing originated anywhere those cameras caught. 

Cisco clears his throat. “You can probably get inside, right, Flash?”

“I don’t think the structure’s been cleared,” the Flash says dubiously. 

Mick shrugs. “Well then I can’t tell you a damn thing. All this shows is that it spread up to this floor all at once, doesn’t say shit about how it started.” 

The Flash eyes him for a second, then sends a look back at Ramon. He sighs and vanishes in a blurry burst of lightning. 

Which is kinda cool, so Mick grins faintly. 

Cisco’s phone rings after a sec and he grabs it. “Okay, hang on, let me get you routed to the monitors…” He leans in and fiddles with the keyboard a sec, and all the images on the computers change to a wobbling video feed. 

The Flash appears on it, staring right at the camera. “Good?” 

“Good,” Cisco says into his phone. 

Flash turns the camera - which is also a phone, of course, Mick realizes - around on the burned-up husk of that building.

Mick can’t help but admire it for the instant before the Flash streaks through the cops and the image goes all dark for a couple of blinks. Fire’s way more beautiful than its aftermath, but Mick can still see the poetry in the skeleton it left behind. 

The Flash ends up at a stairwell inside the burned out building, and he moves down it slowly. The mic picks up a lot of creaks and groans, nothing weird in that. The building was old, even without the fire it’d still be making noises. 

He reaches a door and pushes it open, and his voice comes through all quiet, kinda giving a ‘whoa’ kinda noise.

“It’s still really hot down here. I think people have been through it, so the ATF might have some shots of the inside here by now.” He holds the phone out and scans the room. 

Mick watches the monitor in interest. It’s dark down there, but there’s enough holes in the ceiling where the flames burned through the floor above to let in light. 

He glances at Cisco. “Tell him to get close to the walls.” 

The Flash moves at once, slow and careful. “I can hear you, you know.” 

Mick can’t flip the guy off through a phone, so he doesn’t answer. He looks at the soot pattern on the walls, and it’s not right. 

“This isn’t right,” he says out loud, getting up and moving around to the wall, where the bigger monitors show a clearer image. It’s too dark to be really good, but he can see enough. 

Cisco follows behind him. “What isn’t right?” 

Mick points at the wall. “It’s just like the other floor. Look at this, it’s a rising pattern. No place it starts, no spot below the heat. I mean it’s pretty much impossible to…” He frowns, considering. “You sure there’s not another floor below this one?” 

“Yeah,” the Flash says into the feed. “This is all that’s on the blueprints. It’s a basement, nowhere to go below here.”

Not right. Not possible. “What about the floor?” 

“Uh? There’s grates laid down, maybe from flooding or something. And cement underneath, looks like, about two inches beneath the grate.” 

“Huh.” Mick stares at the feed for a while, thinking. 

“This isn’t helping, is it?” The Flash moves the camera back to his own dumbass mask. 

“No,” comes a snippy voice. That older guy in black again. Mick barely glances over at him. “It isn’t. Just get back here, Flash. I’ve got a couple of ideas for scans that might help us determine a cause.” 

“Hey, hey. Give him a chance, gu--” 

“Forget it, Ramon. Waste your own time as much as you want, but you’re not going to keep wasting ours.”

“It’s not a waste of time! Nobody knows more about--”

“Ramon. Shut it. Let the grown-ups work if you’re going to--”

“Hey.” Mick turns away from the monitors all at once. “Keep talking to him like that.”

The guy looks at him like he’s a chimp about to toss his own shit or something. “Excuse me?” 

Mick figures that this is the guy Cisco called to bitch about the day he asked Mick if he was a bully as a kid. He rolls his hand into a fist, hoping he'll get to see if this dickhead has a strong enough jaw to back up the attitude. 

Cisco’s still beside Mick, so Mick shifts enough to plant himself between the kid and the dickhead.

“You heard me,” he says softly, making nice solid eye contact with the fucker. “Tell him to shut up again. Say another fuckin’ thing to him.” 

There’s a beat. Cisco’s hand hooks around Mick’s sleeve, like he’s gonna try to break the silence or talk him down or something. But he doesn’t say anything. 

Nobody does. Mick darts a look over at the cop, but even he’s looking away like he doesn’t hear Mick saying anything. 

Mick looks back at the prick. “No? You done?” 

The guy scowls at him, arms folded across his chest. 

“Good.” He turns back to the monitors. “Now give me a minute here, for fuck’s sake. Not like some dark fuckin’ phone video’s the best way to figure shit out.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Quieter suddenly, the Flash moves the camera back to the walls. 

Cisco’s hand is still a press of weight against his wrist, and that does kinda help him feel more focused. He thinks. 

There was burning everywhere, all at once. No place to start and stop. The ceiling’s singed mostly all the same way, with a few spots where it’s burned through completely. 

Huh. 

“Hey, point that thing over your head.” 

The Flash obeys, heaving a sigh as he does it. 

Yeah, like two dozen little holes right up near the walls, all spaced about equal distance from each other. Way too much of a pattern. Fire doesn’t like patterns.

Mick grins as the story comes clearer. “Shit.” 

“What?” 

He glances back at Cisco even as he talks to the Flash. “Is there some kinda boiler room down there? Some kinda central air feed, that’s what you’d need.” 

The video shifts as the Flash moves. “Um. What am I looking for, a closet?” 

“Yeah, probably. Somewhere around the outside walls so it can have an air intake.” 

“I see a door, hang on.” The Flash marches carefully across the metal of the grating on the floor. 

Mick grins at Cisco. “Gotta be a few of ‘em. Big ones.” 

“Of what?” 

Mick holds up a finger. 

“Whoa, hey.” The feed shows a door opening, and the Flash moves in and focuses the phone on exactly what Mick expected. “Is this weird?” 

A solid dozen, from what Mick can tell. Pure oxygen in those tanks, though they’ll be empty now. Enough to feed through the whole building for a good couple of hours before the fire started. 

“What are they?” the cop asks as he approaches the monitors and Mick. 

Mick grins, but again aims it back towards Cisco. “So yeah, I think we got this.” 

“Really?” Cisco smiles back. “What’s--” 

There’s an electric hum, and the Flash is suddenly back there in the middle of the room, smelling all smokey. Nice. 

“Okay, Rory, what do we know?” He’s a little less confrontational about things than he was before he left. But not much. 

Mick looks around at all the eyes on him but talks to Cisco, because he still doesn’t think much of anyone else in that room. “The tanks were oxygen, bet you anything. You add oxygen to the air when a fire’s going and, boom, everything heats up real quick. My bet is your arsonist had those tanks wired right through the air system, pumping a whole buncha pure oxygen all through that building, into every single room.” 

“That’s easy enough to confirm,” the cop answers. “But how did the fire start in the first place?” 

“Rubens’ tube,” Mick answers. 

Cisco shows some visible surprise at that. “Rubens…” He looks over at the cop. “A Rubens’ tube is a physics tool. It’s used to demonstrate sound wave oscillation.” His eyes come back to Mick, looking wide and impressed. “But…” 

Mick grins. “That’s what  _ you _ think a Rubens’ tube is,” he says. “To a guy who wants to start a fire, it’s a whole lotta little fires all lined up, all starting at the same time.” 

“It’s basically like a long tube made of...like, little bunsen burners.” Cisco pulls up an image of one on the monitors to show the other people in the room, but his focus stays on Mick. 

Mick nods at the screen in front of him. “Bring up the building again, huh?” 

Cisco pulls up a wide shot of the burned-out wreck. Mick walks up to it and points. “Okay, look, all the walls show the same patterns, right? Fire came straight up on ‘em, from everywhere all at once. Weird shit, okay, fire doesn’t do that. It travels. Unless it actually did come from everywhere at once. Had to start in the basement, and come on, why the fuck else would anyone put grates down over a cement floor? The little holes in grates are perfect covers for lining up a tube. He’d’ve put at least a line of ‘em along each wall. Hell, if he had the material he could turn the whole fucking floor of the basement into a 2D pyro box. Then all he’d have to do it turn the gas on and light up a match anywhere. He could’ve done it from the doorway, tossed it right in.” 

“That would be risky, though,” the Flash says, frowning from Mick to the images on the screen. 

“Nah, not if you know what you’re doing. If the gas is set on low it’s like...when you turn one of them gas stoves on with the flames down at the bottom setting. The whole floor would light up, boom, but short little flames. Nothing to latch on to. So that’s how you start the fire at first. Then, when you’re someplace safe and you want it to light up all at once, all you gotta do is either up the gas…” 

Cisco finishes, fascination in his eyes. “Or turn on the radio.”

Mick grins. “Hell yeah.” 

Cisco gestures at the images he brought up for the others. “The design of the tube is to show how sound waves oscillate. Any kind of loud tone sent through a set-up like that would affect the flames, send them shooting up or dropping down or anything else, based on the frequency of the sound. It would take a lot of fuel and a lot of sound to get them up that high, but--”

“But nothing impossible,” the tall asshole pipes up, interest in his voice. “And the moment the flames reached the first floor, and the oxygen-enriched air from those tanks, the whole place would light up like an explosion.” 

“I don’t know anything about the sound wave shit,” Mick says. “All I know is there’s a few guys out there that’ve used these things before. If it’s close-up work all they do is fiddle with a propane tank and boom, a whole line of fire shoots up wherever they want it. But if they gotta do the job from a distance they rig up a speaker to the end of the tube and hit play once they’re far enough away.”

“It’ll be easy enough to prove, just pick up those grates.” The tall nerd sends Mick a look, like he’s too surprised he’s got a few working brain cells to remember they were close to scrapping a minute ago. 

Fuck him either way. Mick nods at the cop. “A coupla local guys I know are into these things, and they’re both for hire. Plus they’re arsonists, which means they ain’t shit, so they’ll give up the owner.” 

“Owner?” 

“Uh, yeah. Maybe you can get down to a basement and rig up oxygen tanks without anyone seeing you, but these assholes laid down a whole grate floor trying to cover this shit up. So someone let ‘em do that, someone who wanted the whole building straight-up gone. I’m putting money on whoever owns the place. Simplest choice, anyway.” 

One of the ladies, a smoking-hot black lady Mick doesn’t know, is already typing into one of the side computers. “The name will be in county records.” 

The cop and the Flash and the other lady start gathering around her as she works. Mick shoots a grin back at Cisco, since he already knows he’s right about this shit. 

Cisco looks back at him with a big smile, his eyes bright and kind of...something, something Mick can’t read so well. If he didn’t know better he’d say the guy looks proud of him. 

He glances at the others, then moves around the computer table thing and approaches Mick. “I promised you’d get out of here safe, maybe that’s something that should happen now while everyone’s busy.” 

Mick shrugs. He’s got nothing else to do, but yeah, these people don’t like him and he doesn’t really like them either. 

Cisco casually leads him towards the big doors going out to the corridor - the lab’s fucking huge, Mick wouldn’t be able to find his way around if he had to. 

As they reach the doors he feels something at the back of his neck, a tingle, and he looks back to see that tall fucker watching them go. 

He meets the guy’s eyes dead-on, since fuck him; he isn’t running away, he just solved their shit for them. They owe him one. But the guy just looks back at him like he’s trying to figure out what he’s made of or something. He doesn’t speak or draw attention to Mick leaving or anything else. 

Mick’s not one to step back from a challenge, but he’s not sure that’s what this is, so he turns and heads down the corridor after Cisco. 

When they reach the little side door they first came in through, Cisco slows and looks back at him. 

“Thanks, obviously.” 

Mick shrugs. “No big deal.” 

“Pretty impressive, though. None of us would have figured all that out. I’m not even sure the arson investigators will sort it out anytime soon.” 

“Fire’s what I know. That’s why you wanted me here, right?” 

Cisco hesitates a second. “Right.” He leans back against the door like he’s gonna push it open, but just rests there for a minute looking up at Mick like he’s looking for something. “I’m surprised you agreed, though.” 

Mick shrugs. He’s surprised he agreed, too, stupid as it was to stroll right into a place where everyone wants him locked up and at least two of the guys there could have done it on the spot.

But then, he’s not that surprised. He knows exactly why he came. 

He hesitates, feeling a little awkward about it, but what the hell. “You said you knew it wasn’t me.” 

Cisco’s head tilts. “What?” 

“On the phone.” Mick looks at him, then away at the door, feeling uneasy. “Soon as I saw that shit on the news I knew people were gonna put it on me. Some people, anyway, just ‘cause it’s a fire and nobody bothers telling the pyros apart from the arsonists. I thought maybe you’d think I broke my promise just like that. It’s so fucking easy to lay it on me when anything burns.” 

He was ready to argue his case earlier, when his phone rang and he knew it had to be Ramon calling. He expected a whole big ugly thing, Cisco yelling at him and asking for his gun back and Mick trying to explain he was innocent, but probably doing a shit job because he’s shit at talking. 

Instead all he had to say was ‘it wasn’t me’.

“But you just said ‘I know’. When I said I didn’t do it.” Mick scratches the back of his neck, feeling warm and uncertain in a way he doesn’t feel all that often. “I never had nobody believe me like that before.” 

A guy like Mick doesn’t get to have things. He fucks it up. He loses his home, loses everything he has, over and over again. Either from cops finding him or from pulling some dumbass job he’s gotta run from, or with fire. With burning. 

He had a chance to become a fucking  _ legend,  _ if that Rip prick had any kind of truth in him at all. And he lost it. Hell, he never should have had it to begin with. Because he’s big, mean, dumb, he starts fires, and Rip only wanted Snart. 

Snart, who Mick doesn’t get to have anymore either. 

He’s only had his uncle’s house as long as he has because he’s not usually there all that much. But he’s gonna lose it too, sooner or later. He’ll be home one day and out of nowhere he’ll light a match and he’ll put it to the corner of the curtains in the kitchen, or that old scratchy yarn blanket on the back of the couch. It’ll go up. He’ll let it. He’ll regret it the minute that high of watching the flames fades away, but it’s gonna happen. 

Mick Rory doesn’t get to keep things. Not good things. 

Cisco’s not a thing. He’s a guy. He’s practically a stranger, but he made Mick’s gun, and fixed it when it broke. He talked him through some ugly shit and didn’t think different of him afterward. 

He said ‘I know’ on the phone. He believed Mick. 

Mick doesn’t want to lose that. He doesn’t get to keep things, but he wants to keep Cisco. Even if he’s only ever some guy who exists in the same city and believes him when he says something wasn’t him. Even if it’s just that, Mick wants to keep it. 

He doesn’t want the disappointed eyes he saw at the bank that one time. He wants ‘I know’. 

So if Cisco wants him to come here with all his rude-ass friends and look at some pictures and talk about the only shit Mick knows anything about, that’s fine with Mick. That’s nothing. That’s cake. 

He looks down at the kid, feeling awkward. 

But Cisco’s looking back at him, and he’s smiling all big and squinty-eyed like Mick said something fucking amazing. 

It makes Mick’s mouth curl up on one side, that look. Cisco is really  _ strange,  _ in this way Mick can’t put together. 

Doesn’t help that the people Mick’s spent the most time with lately have been Snarts. The Snarts never really say exactly what they mean. You gotta listen around their words and figure shit out, or else just do whatever they’re pushing you to do and hope you get something out of it too. You can’t tell how the Snarts feel about a damn thing, unless it gains them something to make it obvious. And even then there’s no way to be sure that’s really how they feel, or just how they want you to think they feel. 

But Cisco’s like this fucking neon sign, might as well have his feelings spelled out right across his face. Mick’s lousy at reading people, but Cisco’s like a fucking Dr. Seuss book or something. He’s easy. 

It’s weird. It’s kinda nice. Most people are nuclear physics or something. Cisco is...fire. Cisco is something Mick gets. Even when he doesn’t  _ get  _ him, he gets him. 

At least, that’s how he feels. Maybe he’s fooling himself, who knows. 

He clears his throat, though, and looks over at the door. “Right. I’m gonna…” He sucks in a breath, lets it out. “You know, I could use a drink,” he says, and looks back at Cisco. “You wanna go for a drink?” 

Cisco’s grinning so hard his cheeks are all puffed out. It’s impossible to even feel nervous about asking when that’s the face looking up at Mick. 

“Yeah,” Cisco says, not looking surprised at the offer, not missing a single beat. “Yeah, I really do.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not an arsonist and this scenario has no basis in reality. FYI.
> 
> This is the last of my pre-planned chapters but I have a beginning on the next one, and ideas for what else I want to see happening (the Return of the Snart, a meta targeting Cisco, etc) so this is not the end. 
> 
> I mean of course it's not. It's just getting good. :D


	5. Mick the Suitor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place immediately after the last chapter, and things go from 0-60 real damn quick. Note the increased rating and sexy time warnings added up above.

Cisco feels apprehensive when they walk into the bar, for about...oh, five, six seconds.

It’s a hole, this place, from the gravel parking lot to the stucco walls forming a claustrophobic-looking windowless box, and the dingy sign that doesn’t light up. Sinners and Saints. He’s guessing the place sees way more of the former than the latter.

He walks in, he looks around, he spots a dozen guys in one sweeping gaze who could all probably crush him to death by sitting on him, all of them leathered-up - not in the fun way - bearded and dingy and unfriendly looking.

This, for a nerdy little dude like Cisco Ramon, is what death looks like.

But he sees those men, sees their unfriendly gazes turning towards him, and five seconds later he forgets he ever had a moment’s discomfort.

Because every one of those men looks from Cisco to the man who came in with Cisco, and every one of them jerks their gaze away again like they’re the ones who are suddenly nervous.

Cisco goes from a moment’s apprehension to grinning outright, and he glances at his companion, wanting to follow his lead.

Mick Rory shoots a longer, slower look around the place, nods to himself like he’s noted and is pleased by the fact that nobody wants to make eye contact, and then he strides towards the bar. Cisco sticks by his side.

The place really is a rat hole. The bar is about ten feet of scuffed wood, there’s a wall of bottles behind it that are all varying shades of brown. A pool table in the corner, twangy music coming in from somewhere. Some tables and booths in the back from what look like better times than this place must see lately.

Mick slides onto an unpadded wooden stool. The bartender holds up a bottle with a grunt, and Mick nods and flashes two fingers.

Cisco sits on the stool beside him and glances around more openly now that he’s sure he’s got nothing at all to worry about.

Mick looks his way, cocks up an eyebrow with the faintest twitch of his mouth, then turns an impassively hard gaze to the bartender as he slides two shots onto the bar in front of them. Mick looks down at the glasses, unimpressed. The bartender shrugs and sets the bottle down on the bar in front of him.

Mick nods.

No one says a word.

Cisco grins as the bartender scoots away, the whole place and its aura and its creepiness suddenly hilarious to him. He grabs the shot glass with its muddled brown liquid and lofts it, sniffing experimentally. Not bad, just whiskeyish and earthy.

He turns on his stool, studying Mick, who is by far the most interesting thing about the place. “So. This is where bad guys hang out.”

Mick growls out that soft laugh of his and grabs the bottle. “C’mon, let’s grab a table. Too many assholes listening.”

Cisco plucks up both shot glasses and follows as he heads to the back. It’s dusty and badly-lit and empty in a way that says people don’t usually populate the dark corners of this place - not surprising, really - but he feels nothing but cheerful as he slides into a creaky booth with giant gashes in the thin vinyl.

It’s obvious Mick’s got some kind of reputation around here, but if he isn’t worried about damage to that reputation from sitting in the darkness alone with a beaming science nerd, then Cisco isn’t gonna sweat it either.

Mick drops down across from him, shooting another look around. Seemingly content that no one is close enough or brave enough to listen in on them, he relaxes against the back of the booth and grabs his glass.

“This is Snart’s place,” he says.

Cisco’s grin fades a little. Snart is usually not a good reference for Mick these days.

But Mick doesn’t tense up, just stares at the liquor in the small glass. “He loves this shithole, and hell if I know why. I usedta figure he’d be for high class places. He’s a con job, you know? All about the nice shit. But.” He shrugs and shoots down his liquor, reaching for the bottle the second the empty glass hits the table.

Cisco sips his, a little wary, but it goes down warm and almost smooth. The place is a shithole but this is definitely not rotgut.

Mick lifts his second shot, still lost in his own thoughts. “That’s the weirdest thing about Snart. He went after these fancy things and wanted all this fucking money all the time, and I never could figure out what he did with it. It never seemed to matter to him once we actually got whatever it was we were going for. I guess he just wanted the job. Fucker was never happy unless he was working some plan.”

Cisco kills off his shot with a second, deeper sip. “What about you?”

Mick blinks at him.

“What did you want it for?”

“I was just in it for the chaos.” Mick shrugs and sets his glass down. He grabs the bottle, filling up Cisco’s again.

“Bet the money’s nice, though.”

Mick considers that. “The chaos and the money, yeah.”

Cisco laughs, and lofts his shot glass. “Here’s to breaking the law, I guess.”

Mick toasts him with a crooked grin and they down their shots. He starts pouring the next ones without missing a beat, and Cisco is starting to think he might be out of his depth here.

When Mick slides his glass over, he takes it but makes no move to drink yet. “Hey, so. Can I ask you something?”

Mick’s grin flattens out a little, but he just cocks an eyebrow and shrugs. Wary, though, Cisco can see it in the set of his shoulders.

Snart is a mostly forbidden conversation topic, so he figures that’s what Mick doesn’t want him asking more about. Which is easy enough. Cisco’s got less than zero urge to go digging into Captain Cold’s life. Not when Mick’s such a more interesting study.

He sits back, tapping fingernails into the shot glass idly. “Back at the lab, you were talking about the guys you know who use Rubens’ Tubes as firestarters.”

“Uh huh.” Mick’s shoulders relax as he waits.

“I mean, you said that they were arsonists. Which. You know, makes sense. But you didn’t seem to...um.” He frowns at the glass, trying to figure out how to ask. “They didn’t seem to be friends of yours. To put it mildly.”

Mick chuckles suddenly. “You want to know why a guy who burns things the way I do talks about arsonists like they’re walking bags of shit.”

Cisco looks across at him, grinning. “Yep. That.”

“I’m a pyro, not an arsonist. Whole different thing, even if you don’t go into the whole mental part of it, me being a fucking addict and killer and all. Fire’s not some tool, okay? It’s bigger than that. It’s a power. When I have bad days and I need something to burn…” He hesitates, but doesn’t seem uncomfortable. Just digging for words.

Cisco can’t help but watch him, the little microscopic changes in his expression.

He can’t believe there was ever a time he thought Mick was nothing but blank-faced and empty-headed.

“It’s about respect,” Mick says suddenly, leaning in and downing his shot. He doesn’t grab the bottle again yet, though. He looks back at Cisco, serious. “When I set things to burn, I don’t much give a shit what’s burning or why. The fire’s the point. It’s a force, it’s bigger than anyone or anything. When fire wants to burn it’s gonna burn. Me lighting a match or using that gun, it just lets me be part of it for a minute, right at the start. But anybody worth a shit knows that once it’s going, it’s the thing in control. I mean a bunch of clowns with hoses can put it out eventually, I guess, but it’s still taking whatever it wants to with it. And whatever it burns, there’s no bringing it back. Hack a piece of wood in two, you can glue it back together if you want. But nobody can take a pile of ash and turn it back into what it used to be.”

He reaches up and rubs at his shoulder absently, and Cisco wonders how deep and far down that scarring of his goes.

Cisco reaches out and grabs the bottle, pouring Mick another shot as he waits.

Mick grins and takes it with a nod. “Anyway, that’s why arsonists ain’t shit and never will be shit. Because they’re cocky assholes who treat fire like it’s just one more tool in their box. They use it to help themselves out, to get rid of evidence or cover up murder or get insurance money or what the hell ever. They got no respect for it. Got their tools and their tricks and think they’re the ones in control. You ask me, they should burn. Even just a little bit. They’d change their tune quick.”

Cisco thinks about the fire that morning, the entire building up in flames. The lists of names of people who died right in their own homes, in their sleep, because some asshole wanted money or whatever. It’s the biggest tragedy Central City’s seen since the accelerator accident. Entire families, gone.

He grabs his own glass and takes the shot, grimacing at the way the heat’s starting to settle in his stomach. “Whoever did it, the building this morning...maybe they _should_ burn.”

“Damn right.” Mick holds up his glass as if in toast.

Cisco pours another shot, but hesitates. “I’m like eighty percent sure I skipped lunch today,” he says, more to himself than to Mick. No wonder he’s already feeling a little lightheaded.

Mick laughs. “Well, slow down, little man. Actually…” He glances towards the door, then slides out of the booth. “Stay here.”

He heads for the door, past the bartender and the pool players and most of them go out of their way to be looking somewhere else as Mick moves past them.

Cisco can’t help but grin at that. He leaves his last shot on the table and grabs his phone, sending a quick text to Barry.

_Catch the guy? I’m calling it a night if you don’t need me back._

The answer comes quick, because it’s Barry. _Yep. Rory was right, it was the building owner. Something about selling the land, I dunno. It’s suspect, but it's for Joe to sort out now. You okay?_

Cisco glances up as the door opens across the bar, but it’s just another couple of lowlife-looking dudes in leather.

_All good,_ he sends back. He had no intention of going back to work, of course, but at least knowing things are quiet means he doesn’t have to feel guilty about that.

_Did Rory get home okay?_

_I can feel the judgement in that question, you realize._

_I mean. Mick Rory. Heat Wave. And you just like asked him to come help and he did? It’s weird, dude._

_It’s not that weird._

_Cisco._

_Yeah, okay, weird. But come on, we gave Lisa and her dick brother a chance, right?_

“Well, well.”

Cisco looks up at the voice, expecting Mick. Instead it’s the two dudes who just came in, sauntering through the shadows towards his little dingy booth like they just found the last item in a scavenger hunt or something.

Cisco sits up, tucking his phone in his pocket. He glances towards the door, but no sign of Mick. And the same guys who were quick to duck their eyes when Mick was with him are now watching openly. Even that bartender.

He raises his eyebrows, but. Okay. He’s dealt with bullies his whole life, nothing new here.

And it’s funny, but he’s really not nervous in the slightest. Not when they reach the booth, and one grabs the bottle of whiskey sitting half-full on the table. Not when the second one crowds in to block the opening on Cisco’s side as he grins down at him.

He doesn’t feel anything but curious, and a little amused. “If you’re thirsty there’s an entire guy over there whose job is to make drinks. Just saying.”

“What is a pretty little girl like you doing all alone in a place like this?” the guy with the bottle asks, lofting it like he’s considering taking a drink.

Mick’s nowhere, and for all Cisco knows he could have taken off in that ratty sedan of his. He could be halfway across town by now. But Cisco still can’t work up any fear. Maybe the whiskey’s sucking it all up.

He just looks from one to the other of them in interest. “Minding my own business,” he answers. “And maybe you should ask yourselves why nobody else in this place started any shit with me before you got here.”

The guy with the bottle actually looks back behind them, seeing all those silent, staring eyes. There’s expectation in the air, a tense kind of hum.

Cisco eyes the other guy, who’s still blocking him from leaving the booth. “I don’t know if you guys got the message, but there’s a whole lot of dangerous people in this city these days who don’t look the way you’d expect.”

“You a meta? Is that it? One of those freak fuckers on the news?”

Cisco shrugs. “Well. Yeah. But that’s only one of the ways I’m dangerous.”

The guy with the bottle actually sets it back on the table slowly. “Uh, hey, man, maybe we should just...”

The second guy keeps staring at Cisco, eyes narrow, like he’s perceptive enough behind the beer stink and the exhaust fumes to actually sniff truth from lies.

“I don’t like metas. Seems to me the city’d be better off if every one of you freak fuckers found a shallow grave.”

He’s not scared, not really, but adrenaline’s starting to make his already muggy thoughts start buzzing. But in a moment of perfect timing, the front door to the bar opens again.

Cisco looks past his new company, and beams. “Hey, and there’s one of the other reasons I’m the wrong guy to mess with.”

The two guys look back.

Mick’s got a plastic bag in his hand and a blank look on his face as he makes his way with quick strides back to the booth. He almost looks innocent, but there’s a gleam in his eyes as he looks from Cisco to his guests.

“ _Shit_ ,” one of the two guys hisses.

The one crowding the booth suddenly backs up a few feet, hands lifting into the air like he’s harmless. “Rory. Thought you were out of town.”

“Guess I'm not.” Mick’s voice is a growl, and though it usually is something about it makes a shiver slide up Cisco’s back.

He can’t stop grinning.

“You see this?” Mick lofts the bag. “This is dinner for me and the kid there. Now, I’m gonna go ahead and beat you both into the ground either way, but I’m telling you now that if this bag drops or spills and we gotta go hungry, it’s gonna be a lot worse for all of us.”

The one who’d almost taken a drink laughs, loud and forced. “Come on, Mick, we’re all friends here. We were just welcoming the guy to the bar. Total gentlemen.”

“Oh yeah?” Mick peers past them at Cisco.

“Yeah, of course. Tell him, kid.” The second one looks back at Cisco. No threat in his eyes, pure pleading.

It’s amazing. The whole thing. It’s surreal and he’s got a choice to make here, doesn’t he? Cisco’s a good guy, nerd sidekick to a real genuine superhero. Violence is a no-no, and guys like him should never, ever encourage it.

Besides, things could get really dangerous, right? What if more of these guys jump in? What if someone’s got a gun or a knife or something? What if Mick gets hurt?

It’s a no-brainer. This is the kind of situation that simply needs to be defused before it goes too far.

But that gleam in Mick’s eye is...hell, it’s kind of _really_ hot. And after dealing with Harry and the whole group at the lab Cisco figures maybe he’s got some tension he needs to get out. Mick told Harry to leave Cisco alone. Threatened him, almost, in his own way. And Harry listened. Cisco can't get over that. 

Mick looks like he wants to hit something, so Cisco smiles, wide and sharp-feeling, as he meets Mick’s eyes.

“If that was them being gentlemen then obviously they need a lesson in manners.”

Mick grins back. “I was hoping that was the case.”

It starts and ends surprisingly fast. The one who was talking about shallow graves hits the ground after one hit and doesn’t move. The second one, the one who’d grabbed the bottle, he tries to take off and Mick’s gotta catch up before he lays him out. Takes two hits, even, but then he’s down and out.

It’s not like those scenes in movies where anyone hitting anyone is an excuse for the whole place to jump in and start fighting. Instead everyone else in the bar stays right where they are, some of them laughing as the second guy hits the floor.

When Mick straightens and heads back to Cisco, not even out of breath, still holding their dinner in one undisturbed fist, one brave soul even starts clapping.

Cisco almost wants to clap himself. Instead he just beams, heart racing and stomach doing little somersaults as Mick saunters up and steps over the first guy to get to the booth.

Mick grins, the gleam still in his eyes. “C’mon, this place is feeling kinda crowded tonight.” He holds out his hand.

Cisco takes it, not even feeling surprised at the gesture. He reaches over and grabs the bottle as Mick pulls him up to his feet.

Mick doesn’t let go of his hand as they head for the door. This time some people watch, but Cisco feels untouchable at Mick’s side, unworried about the bottle in his hand or the crowd or the guys on the floor, or anything that might be waiting outside those doors.

Mick pulls a few bills from his pocket and drops them on the bar as he passes. “Later,” he nods at the bartender. Like this is just another Friday night. Hell, maybe it is.

It’s cooler outside than Cisco remembers, a breeze making the dingy outside of the bar feel fresher somehow. He breathes deep as they head for the car, the rattling, sixties throwback sedan Mick drove them out there in.

Mick’s grip is loose and warm around his hand, and when he looks back at Cisco before they reach the car, his smile is as close to bright as Cisco’s ever seen it. “You’re okay, though, right?”

“Perfect,” Cisco answers honestly. The whiskey’s still in his blood enough to make him feel overly warm and brave, so he squeezes Mick’s hand. The hand he just used to knock two big mean dudes out. The one that's holding Cisco's so carefully.

Mick’s face touches with pink, and his smile slides into that crooked almost-shy one Cisco’s only seen once or twice.

He only lets go of Cisco’s hand to reach through the open window and unlock Cisco’s door. He waits for Cisco to sit and hands him the bag, which has a couple of generic styrofoam take-out boxes in it but smells amazing.

“Falafel,” Mick says with a shrug. “There’s a food truck like half a block over, does great plates. No meat, which is fucked up, but it’s good.”

“Thanks,” Cisco says simply, his heart beating faster than it had been back at the bar.

Mick shuts the door and moves around to the driver’s seat.

It’s an old sedan with bench seats, which leaves Cisco debating where to set the bag. He doesn’t want it sitting between them, so as Mick opens his door he twists and leans over to set it on the back seat, and then the bottle beside it.

Mick gets in, drops onto the bench, shuts the door. He doesn’t have keys - Cisco tried to pretend not to notice back at the lab that he started it by touching wires together under the steering column - but he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to get them out of there either way.

Cisco’s pulse is drumming in his ears. He looks out the window back towards the bar, which sits dark and silent. There’s no one moving on the streets that he can see, but he’s pretty sure even if the sidewalks were crowded it wouldn’t make a difference.

They turn to each other at the same time.

There’s a question in Mick’s expression, but Cisco doesn’t wait. He slides in close, hikes a knee up on the bench so he can face him easier, and has to lift up off the bench in order to be able to reach Mick’s mouth.

But he does it. He doesn’t even think about it. He hooks an arm around Mick’s neck to pull him down a little, and seals their mouths together without a moment’s hesitation.

The position is awkward, and surprise seems to make Mick stiffen. But Cisco doesn’t fret about it, can’t let himself. He shuts his eyes and feels the rasp of stubble against his jaw as he kisses those frozen lips. Blame the whiskey, blame the adrenaline, blame the fact that Cisco is so warmly fascinated by everything about Mick lately.

He only draws back after a few seconds when it becomes apparent Mick isn’t responding. But even as he pulls back, the firm weight of Mick’s hand catches him around the waist and holds him where he is.

Cisco’s eyes open, and though he hasn’t had much time to doubt himself he’s still shaken by the relief that tears through him when he sees the look on Mick’s face.

His shock is just that, shock. Not revulsion, not even close. His eyes are wide, his breathing ragged. He’s looking at Cisco like Cisco is a revelation, like he didn’t think about this but now that it’s happened it’s... _everything._

Cisco lets out a breath, gaze dropping to Mick’s mouth. He leans in again.

This time there’s no tension. Mick is all in. He kisses hot and wild, pulling Cisco in against him with an easy strength that sends thrills of heat down Cisco’s back. His hands feel huge as they wrap around his hips. Cisco gets pulled off balance, but to a less awkward angle, and he’s too busy meeting those heated kisses to worry about it either way.

Mick hauls him in until Cisco’s straddling his lap. The steering wheel digs into his back but he could care less, settling against Mick’s broad, solid form and panting for air as Mick’s mouth slips down to his jaw.

He makes soft little noises he can’t stop, tilting his head back and thrilling at the rasp of stubble along his neck as Mick kisses a heated trail down and then back up.

Mick gets back to Cisco’s mouth and dives in. He groans against Cisco's lips, low and gravel, thick with a warm kind of wanting that Cisco needs to hear again and again. Cisco’s hands slide around his neck, nails scratching up the slightly longer stubble his hair is shaved down to.

Mick twitches, a full-body shudder that makes Cisco grin into his kiss.

He shifts to try to get the steering wheel out of his back, and their kiss breaks off when the movement drives their hips together.

Cisco gasps, his stirring cock going right to half-hard in his jeans. He rolls his hips again, more deliberately, and wrings another full-throated groan out of Mick.

It’s amazing, all of it. The heat and the want and the way everything just exploded out of him out of nowhere. The way that Mick is responding.

But he can’t quite ignore the steering wheel or the way his knees are digging into upholstery. Or the fact that a bar full of potentially-annoyed criminals is right behind them.

He leans back, catching his breath, scratching his nails down the back of Mick’s head lightly.

Mick swallows a growl, his eyes opening slowly. And god, that gleam from before is back again, brighter and wickeder than ever.

Cisco swallows down the urge to dive right back in. He licks his lips, and heats up from head to toe when he sees the way Mick’s eyes drop to his mouth and focus like there’s nothing else in the universe.

When he speaks his voice is thick in a way he’s not used to hearing. “You remember where I live, right?”

Mick’s eyes are locked on his mouth as he asks, but it seems to take him a moment to register the words. “Uh. Yeah, course.”

“Good.” Cisco shifts to climb off of him and drop back on the bench seat. “Get us there fast.”

Mick curses under his breath, hands shaking as he strikes the wires to get the engine going. He throws the car into gear and stomps on the gas so quick it makes Cisco laugh, all breath.

It’s hard to imagine, Cisco making a guy like Mick Rory so hot and bothered that his hands shake. It’s heady, like an extra few shots of whiskey all at once. Cisco watches Mick drive, unable to take his eyes off him, feeling the throbbing of his own pulse through his limbs like he’s been through some major workout.

Maybe there’s some thinking that ought to be done here, while he’s got a few minutes. But Cisco can’t bring himself to worry. He still feels that same untouchable feeling that came over him at the bar. That’s got to be what’s in control of him right now, because Cisco isn’t this guy. He just isn’t.

He’s not a virgin, but it’s a near thing. And no matter what he’s done, he’s never considered himself the seductive type, not unless someone’s idea of seduction is watching old movies and mixing popcorn and junior mints in the same bowl, because he’s a pro at that.

But this. This happened all at once, natural, without him even worrying about what might happen or fretting about whether he was making the right moves or not.

He _likes_ Mick. That’s what he knows. It’s a new thing, maybe, but it doesn’t feel new. It feels...settled, like things were wandering this way all on their own and now that he’s pushed it along it’s all clicked into place. It’s _crazy,_ maybe, but god. It feels so easy.

Mick gets them there fast. Before Cisco can even think enough to decide to ignore his thoughts, the brakes screech and the car stops and there’s a familiar crappy brick building out the window.

Cisco gets his door open and pushes to his feet uncomfortably, cursing his habit of wearing his jeans so tight. Mick comes around the other side of the car fast and joins him, his hand coming out and then wavering there in the air for a moment, like he’s the uncertain one of the two of them.

Cisco doesn’t question himself, just slides in against Mick. Mick’s hand curls at his waist, and they move to the building.

The front door lock doesn’t work - hasn’t since Cisco first moved in - so he just pushes it open and heads for the stairs.

“You should be in a nicer place,” Mick says, his voice low and still thick enough to make Cisco heat up. “This place is worse than some flophouses I’ve stayed in after prison.”

Cisco glances around at the water-stained walls and the trash in the stairwell, the suspiciously stained concrete of the steps. He’s had a few uncomfortable moments in the building, but not many. And with Mick at his side, following him up the stairs so close he’s a big warm mass at Cisco’s back, he’s never felt safer.

He grins as he answers, because the truth is ironic. “You’re the only one who’s ever broken in.”

Mick hums, a dissatisfied kind of noise. When they reach the top of the stairs he tugs Cisco to a halt, pressing him into the wall and crowding up against him. He kisses Cisco, hard and deep, making Cisco's head spin with it. 

“You need to be safer,” Mick insists when he breaks the kiss, words spoken so close to Cisco’s ear he can feel Mick’s lips moving.

“Okay,” he answers, a little breathless. He’d’ve probably agreed to anything right about then. He tilts his head up, cheek brushing against Mick’s.

Mick groans and drops his head, sealing their mouths together. His hand comes up and laces through Cisco’s hair, tugging lightly. “Christ,” he breathes.

Cisco makes a sound of agreement, chasing him for another kiss and then breaking away from the wall so he can find his own door. Fast. Mick moves in behind him, hands locking at his hips, body pressing in against his ass.

They make it to his door and he miraculously doesn’t fumble his keys, just gets the lock open and shoves his way inside. Finally, jesus.

Mick stays plastered to his back, but he steps back long enough to shut and lock the door behind them. Cisco expects him to turn back around and get back to where they left off.

But he doesn’t. He stands there staring at the door, hands rolling into fists.

Cisco tosses his keys on the coffee table - he can reach from the door, it’s not exactly a big space - then turns back. “What’s wrong?”

Mick nods at the door. “Deadbolt. You need a deadbolt. I got through that lock in ten seconds that one night, and I ain’t even that good at ‘em. We’re gonna put a deadbolt on there.”

Cisco blinks, but smiles. “Landlord might have something to say about that.”

“Fuck the landlord.” Mick turns to him finally. His eyes are nothing but serious.

Cisco’s smile vanishes. “Whoa. Hey. What’s with the safety speech, anyway? I can take care of myself.”

“You don’t get it. Fuck those comic book clowns your pal faces down. There’s bad people out there. Really bad. People who’ll mess up a guy like you just because of what you are.”

Cisco frowns. “What am I?”

“You’re _good._ ” Mick approaches, earnest, voice gruff. “You’re good, and you don’t even get it. People like you, you're like...asshole catnip or something. You got this smile like...just fucking _pretty_. And there’s guys out there who’d just see that and want to snuff it out. I’d know.”

“Why? Because you’re a bad guy?”

“And I _hurt you_.”

Cisco’s eyes widen. He draws in a breath. “Ohhh. That’s what this is about.”

Mick’s shoulders square. His hands are still fisted. “Well. You act like you don’t even remember that shit, with your brother and Snart. But I do. I know what I did.”

Cisco can’t really argue with that. He _does_ act like he forgot, mostly because it’s been a non-issue for him. Oh, he was scared enough when Rory first showed up in his apartment in the middle of the night, but by the time the sun rose the next morning he was pretty well convinced that Mick had no interest in hurting him again.

Cisco put the blame on his and Dante’s kidnapping on Snart alone. But maybe that isn’t fair to Mick. Maybe he wants to take some kind of heat for it.

Still, Cisco studies him, the furrow in his brow and the challenge in his eyes, the way he fists his hands. He’s braced for something. Cisco isn’t going to be able to give it to him.

He approaches Mick, closing the space between them, making solid eye contact as he does. “Are you going to do it again?” he asks simply.

Mick frowns. “What?”

“Are you going to hurt me again?”

Mick’s eyes narrow, then widen. “Fuck, no. No way. Nobody gets to hurt you, not anymore.”

He smiles. “Well, that’s why I can forget the old stuff.”

Mick frowns, unsatisfied.

“I trust you, Mick.”

He sucks in a breath, unsteady. “You’re gonna get yourself killed trusting people like me.”

“Why? You’re no danger to me. You’ve been keeping me safe all day. You’ve been keeping me safe since that day at the bank, even. That’s long enough for me to trust you.”

“You’re so stupid, Cisco. Shit.”

“Maybe.” He shrugs. Wouldn’t be the first time someone called him that. Wouldn’t be the first time they were right. Maybe his sense of self-protection is kinda skewed.

But he has never felt safer, ever, than he did walking through that bar with Mick tonight. And that’s the heady thing. Not the fact that Mick is dangerous and big and legitimately psychologically disturbed, but that he makes Cisco feel safe despite it all. Or because of it all. Who knows.

He looks up at Mick, meeting his eyes easily. There’s not the slightest hint of apprehension inside of him. “The first time you laid hands on me it hurt, a lot. No denying that. But the last time you put your hands on me, I only felt good.”

“Shit.” Mick moves in the last few inches between them. His fists unclench so he can grip Cisco by the hips and tug him in close. “You shouldn’t ever feel anything but good,” he says, voice low and hoarse.

Cisco grins, relieved he seems to have gotten this right. He runs his hands up the broad, endless planes of Mick’s chest. “Show me,” he says.

Mick curses again, low and vehement, but slides his hands down Cisco’s ass and suddenly, without a word of warning, hikes him up off his feet.

Cisco yelps in surprise, but laughs as he loops his legs around Mick’s waist. He’s not a huge guy, but he’s not a shrimp, either. There’s something unspeakably sexy about being lifted so easily, though before Mick he never realized that was a kink he might have.

It’s easier to kiss him like this, up closer to his height, and Cisco indulges himself happily. He curls his arms around Mick’s neck and kisses him greedily. Mick’s mouth is warm, whiskey-flavored and just as eager as Cisco if the way he drives into those kisses is any judge.

He can feel Mick moving, but pays no attention until gravity tugs at them and suddenly Mick drops down on the overstuffed couch and keeps Cisco on top of him. He shifts his knees, straddling Mick’s lap with no steering wheel to impede him.  

Mick’s hands slide up his back, big and broad and warm. He makes a sound against Cisco’s mouth, like a muffled word, but he doesn’t pull back long enough to try again so whatever. Cisco strokes his fingers up the back of Mick’s head, the soft stubble of his hair, and is rewarded with another of those low groans and Mick pulling him in closer.

It’s dizzying. Mick is this big solid slab of a man, and Cisco feels downright needy pressing down into him like this. He’s never been so forward or so thoughtless about wanting something, but the moment he thinks about getting his hands on Mick’s skin he goes for it, drawing back enough to tug at that grey Henley Mick wears so often. He shoves his hands underneath to slide up his stomach. His flat, firm, muscled wall of a stomach, god.

While he’s distracted Mick’s fingers find his hair again, lacing through and gripping loosely. He tugs Cisco’s head to the side and fastens in against his neck, leaving a trail of warm open-mouthed kisses back up to his jaw.

Cisco tilts his head with a pleased hum, but then his fingers on Mick’s stomach run into a plane of textured, rougher skin, and he draws back, breath catching in his throat. Mick’s shirt is in the way but he can feel the demarcation, the start of scarring that goes clear down to his waist, it feels like.

He blinks his eyes open and frowns, breathing hard through the last few minutes. “Is there… anywhere I shouldn’t touch?”

Mick’s eyes are half-shut, his mouth swollen and damp. He meets Cisco’s eyes for a moment and then angles back, grabbing his shirt near the collar and tugging it up and off.

“‘S not much to look at,” he says, his voice a rumble. “But you won’t hurt me or anything.”

And.

Wow.

That is...a whole lot. Cisco’s eyes dart downward without even trying to hide it, and before he can focus on the object of his concern he’s got to deal with the acres of everything he’s suddenly inches away from.

He reaches out uncontrollably and glides his fingertips up Mick’s chest, feeling the warmth of his skin, the rise and fall of his less than steady breathing. His throat feels dry as he skims carefully along the edge of the mass of scars going down the side of his chest.

Mick’s hands have circled back to his hips, resting loosely, but he watches Cisco’s face without a word.

Cisco wants to ask about that scarring, he really does. He just can’t keep his hands off Mick’s skin long enough. Can’t stop from taking in the entire picture instead of just the mass of scar tissue. Mick obviously works hard to keep a certain amount of strength, but he doesn’t look like some bodybuilder who wants every inch of his musculature sculpted out and obvious. This isn’t a gym body, it’s just thick and firm and _sexy_ as _hell_ and Cisco’s discovering all kinds of new fetishes tonight, apparently.

Mick said it was safe to touch, so that’s all he needs to know right now. Curiosity - usually Cisco’s driving force - can wait.

He is a little less certain about his next move, but fair’s fair. He does _not_ have a body that’s built for strength, though he is active and being the mechanical engineer at STAR Labs is a much more physically grueling job than it used to be. He isn’t ashamed of his body, but his fingers still twitch uncertainly as he leans back to tug his own t-shirt off.

Mick’s eyes go slightly wider and drop down to take him in, and Cisco is rewarded by the way his pupils dilate and his breath seems to stick in his throat for a moment.

He doesn’t know that he’s anything special to look at, and he doesn’t have a huge pool of people in his past he could ask. But Mick drags his hands up Cisco’s back and pulls him in to press his mouth against his collarbone, and Cisco stops worrying about it entirely.

He brings one hand to the back of Mick’s neck, the other going back to exploring the broad, hard planes of him. His breathing is ragged, his skin warm and sensitive-feeling wherever it’s pressed against Mick’s.

Mick’s mouth moves up to his neck, his hands calloused and rough against Cisco’s skin. He’s hard, Cisco can feel the press of his cock digging up into him and it makes his head spin.

He rolls his hips the way he did back in the car until the angle is right and his own erection finds Mick’s. The press of them together makes his head fall back, turns his gasp into a whimper.

“Yeah,” Mick rumbles against his throat, arching up into him. “Cisco, fuck.”

When their mouths meet again it’s all tongue and teeth, heat and ragged breathing. Cisco grinds down into Mick’s lap, thoughtless and needy for more of this glancing contact.

Mick’s hands slide down to his ass, pressing him in tighter, closer, bringing them together harder, and it’s enough to make Cisco’s gasps turn into whines against his mouth.

The only flaw in this whole thing is Cisco’s damn jeans, the way his zipper’s threatening to imprint permanently on his dick. He groans when it gets to be too much and draws back, breaking a kiss he really doesn’t want to break.

Mick growls his opposition to that plan until he opens his eyes and sees Cisco desperately trying to unfasten his jeans. Then he growls in a whole other way and moves to help. He knocks Cisco’s unsteady hands out of the way and makes quick work of the button, and is surprisingly gentle with the zipper.

Cisco moans relief as the constriction around his erection vanishes. He reaches for Mick’s belt, but gets in his own way when he can’t resist kissing him, deep and hard. He’s not too surprised to feel Mick’s hands taking over for him again, and he loops his arms around Mick’s shoulders and kisses him deeper.

He feels downright greedy, like he’s been starving for this for weeks. Maybe he has. He can’t put his thoughts together long enough to consider the idea.

A hand - a large, strong, calloused hand - wraps around his cock, and Cisco’s already heated body rushes with pleasure. He breaks away to look between their bodies, to stare, dazed, at Mick’s hand around him.

Mick hums, breathing a little ragged himself. “Good?”

Cisco wants to laugh, but can’t manage it. Understatement. This is hot and...well, way too fast, probably, but perfect. It’s perfect. He doesn’t answer out loud, but whatever’s on his face makes Mick chuckle low in his throat.

Mick shifts him closer until their cocks are pushing together, and shifts his hand to wrap around them both. He strokes upward, a quick, dry jerk that makes Cisco shudder, makes his head bow and his eyes flutter closed.

It’s rough and graceless, it’s just exactly what he might have expected from Mick, and it might be the best fucking thing Cisco’s ever felt. He manages to gain control of a limb long enough to lick a strip of moisture up his own palm and slide it down to join Mick’s, curling around their cocks and completing the circle.

Mick’s approval comes in a throaty groan. His head drops back against the back of the couch, but their hands keep moving, stroking faster.

Cisco may not be a virgin, but this is altogether new to him. It’s not the first cock he’s ever touched, but the entire feeling of this is different. There’s no awkward fumbling or blushes or shy half-questions or tentative kisses. This is need a way he’s never felt it before.

He should have figured it would be, though. He should have suspected that being with Mick Rory would feel like being on fire.

Mick’s hand slips as sweat and other escaping fluids make each stroke wetter and easier. He growls, opening his eyes and looking right at Cisco as he seals his palm back around just Cisco’s cock and starts stroking again, fast and firm.

Cisco’s entire body tightens uncontrollably. He makes a high, broken kind of sound he can’t control and does his best to get a grip around Mick, to return the favor. Mick just grunts and wraps his other arm around Cisco’s neck, pulling him into a kiss.

This is good, this is perfect. Kissing Mick is this wild, wet, fierce thing that makes Cisco feel more wanted than he’s felt mid-orgasm with anyone else. Mick has all this pent-up heat inside of him, he kisses like he needs it or he’ll burn from the inside out. It presses them together, slows their hands, but Cisco isn’t complaining.

Cisco isn’t doing anything but feeling, and wanting. He wants things he has never wanted before so tangibly. He wants Mick inside of him, wants to feel the heat of Mick’s mouth around his cock, wants to keep feeling all this strength and power shivering under him, like Cisco makes him somehow powerless.

Release sneaks up on him. He’s focused on the heat of Mick’s mouth and the glide of his tongue, focused on the thick erection in his hands and the way squeezing hard as he strokes Mick makes Mick vibrate against his mouth. And then his body tightens, his eyes fly open, he pants against Mick’s mouth as he pulses in between them.

His hand slows unconsciously as the rush of orgasm clouds his head. He arches into Mick’s grip, voice coming out in choked little sputters.

Mick says something, but he doesn’t hear anything but a distant rumble. He swallows down his cries and draws back, breathing hard.

Mick’s eyes are locked on him, gleaming. Blue. Cisco hasn’t noticed that before. He’s got blue eyes. Right now they’re mostly black, though. Cisco remembers to get his lazy hand moving again on Mick’s cock. He watches those intense blue eyes slit almost closed, and that damp, full mouth fall open.

He’s going to make Mick Rory come. That’s all he knows. That’s all he can focus on. Someday maybe he’ll get to take his time with this, do it right, find out what makes him moan and arch and writhe into Cisco’s touch. But he can tell by the way Mick’s groans get shorter and quicker and breathier that he’s too close to toy with tonight.

Mick’s arm is still heavy on his shoulders, and he tugs Cisco in insistently. Who would have thought Mick was so keen on kissing? But Cisco’s got no complaints, he goes in happily. Mick doesn’t kiss too deep, just brings their mouths together again and again, between groans.

Before he comes he arches up off the back of the couch, head thrown back, grimacing an intense kind of pleasure. Cisco keeps stroking him blindly, can’t take his eyes off his face, the way release makes the lines around his eyes stand out as his eyes slam shut. Cisco can feel him arching up into his grip, can feel the hot slickness of come hitting his hand and arm, and stomach. But he can’t stop watching.

It’s worth it, too. As Cisco slows down, as the tension in Mick’s body tightens to a peak and then relaxes again, it does something to his face. It softens him, everything about him. Those lines around his eyes vanish into vague wrinkles, the tension he always holds in his brows and around his mouth goes slack.

He slumps back against the couch, his arm dropping off Cisco’s shoulder, his chest heaving as he catches his breath.

Cisco, perched on his lap, watches raptly. He slides his hand from Mick’s still-hard cock, and as a chill hits his skin he becomes aware, reluctantly, of a world beyond that lap.

He blinks around his apartment as if he’s never seen the place, and grimaces at the coolness of the air against those wet spatters on his skin. He reaches over and grabs his discarded t-shirt, wiping himself off.

Mick opens his eyes when Cisco goes after the fluids dotting his stomach. His chest rumbles under Cisco’s hand as he chuckles, and he reaches for Cisco’s arm and pulls him in.

“Fuck,” he says with his usual succinctness.

Cisco dumps the t-shirt on the floor and lets himself be pulled. He’s rewarded with another kiss, this one lazy and light. He hums against Mick’s mouth, letting everything kind of fall down on his shoulders in those moments. He’s back to being warm with Mick pressed against him like a furnace, and he lets himself sag as post-orgasm lethargy spreads through him.

“This,” he murmurs against Mick’s shoulder, “has been an interesting day.”

“Hell yeah it has,” Mick says, sounding downright cheerful.

Cisco gets as comfortable as he can, but before he can really relax his stomach gives a fierce, audible grumble that’s near loud enough to make him jump.

He groans and pushes up off all that broad warm soldiness. “Skipped lunch,” he reminds himself with a sigh.

“Oh. Shit.” Mick suddenly sits up, hauling Cisco off of him and onto the couch beside him like it’s as easy as Cisco dropping that soiled t-shirt. He jumps off the couch, tucking himself into his pants, and heads for the door.

Cisco blinks, but his head’s still foggy and before he can open his mouth Mick’s gone, out the door, shutting it tight behind him.

Cisco can hear his footsteps moving down the hall.

He frowns and looks around, trying to put Mick’s abrupt exit into some kind of context. Wondering if there are any neighbors around who are gonna get an eyeful of sweaty, shirtless Mick Rory.

He hikes up his jeans and zips himself back into decency, and his stomach grumbles again. That hunger fires up a couple of neurons in his brain and he realizes…

Sure enough, pounding footsteps come back down the hall a minute later, and when the door opens Mick’s got a familiar plastic bag in his hand, a bottle in the other, and a big smile on his face.

“Left this in the car,” he says.

Cisco sits up and grins, making grabby hands. “Bring.”

“Might be cold.”

“I don’t care, bring.”

Mick hesitates long enough to lock the door behind him, moving back around the couch and setting the bottle on the coffee table. He holds the bag out obediently.

It’s damn good food truck falafel, even lukewarm. There’s rice and pita and yogurt and he makes himself a quick wrap and has half of it shoved down his throat before he so much as pauses.

When he comes up for air, Mick’s watching him with that same big lopsided smile on his face.

Cisco grins back, swallowing a bite that would choke a less experienced glutton. “Don’t judge me. My calories in and out ratio is way outta whack thanks to you.”

“Fucking nerd,” Mick says in response, but goes back to his own food with smile intact.

Cisco eyes the remainder of his wrap, and asks it, “You wanna crash here tonight?”

Mick chews and swallows, and Cisco isn’t looking at him but his voice sounds like the smile’s not completely gone. “Yeah, okay.”

Cisco beams at his food.

 

* * *

 

It’s funny - the bed he’s in doesn’t feel right, and the air’s way cooler than normal, and someone’s pressed up against him and breathing deep.

But Mick, soon as he does that thing where his brain realizes he’s awake, doesn’t even question any of those things. Of course he’s used to waking up in weird places, but this isn’t like that. Usually when that happens he just blinks and bam, he’s wide awake and knowing he’s probably gotta be ready to move. He’s never been able to just sleep in, not with the life he’s had.

This is different.

It’s a weird place, but he doesn’t so much as open his eyes, not all that fast. He’s happy right where he is, tucked under a heavy cover in the cool air and listening to the strangeness of someone else’s breathing.

He doesn’t sleep with people. He’s fucked plenty of them, but sleeping’s different. Sleeping means trust, and the kind of people he meets, the kind he ends up fucking, there’s no trust there. Hell, last person he had sex with was Lisa, and even then he got right up and started dressing before he was done breathing hard.

Didn’t help that he knew she only fucked him when she wanted something, and he rarely knew exactly what it was she wanted.

Whatever. Past now. He’s pretty sure his Snart days are done, even if his fury at how things turned out with Len seems to be fading a little more every day.

What’s important now is that he’s in a strange place and for the first time in a long fucking time there’s someone sleeping beside him.

His brain’s got holes sometimes. Even now he wakes up half expecting to hear the voice of that computer on Rip’s ship telling him good morning. Sometimes he dreams he’s in prison and wakes up expecting to see bars.

But this morning there isn’t a single shred of doubt in his head. He blinks his eyes open knowing what he’ll see - long black hair on a pillow and Cisco frigging Ramon, of all people in the world, tucked up against his side like it’s all just okay.

Cisco must be used to this cold, because he’s shaken half the covers off him and is sprawled there, back tucked against Mick’s side and limbs splayed out half off the bed. Makes Mick smile.

Before last night he thought of Cisco as kinda shrimpy, this innocent little dude who’s young and stupid, even if he is a genius. But like this, even asleep and helpless like this, he doesn’t seem that way. He’s broader than Mick figured, and his skin’s this all-over brown that white chicks roast on beaches for years trying to get. He’s got hair on his chest, and thick thighs, and a nice fat dick, and he feels like a grown-ass man.

That’s a good thing. Mick’s already feeling a little fucked up, being this close to someone good like Cisco is. But he doesn’t feel nearly as out of place as he might’ve guessed.

Not that he ever guessed anything like this was gonna happen.

He remembers suddenly, crystal clear in his mind, Cisco turning to him last night in the car and just leaning over and planting one on him. Hell, he might not ever forget that. It shocked him so bad he couldn’t even move for a minute.

Cisco is...he's _Cisco._ He's the guy who fixed Mick’s gun for him, and believed him when he said he wasn’t to blame for that fire, and asked him to come by the lab because he thought Mick was smarter than him and his whole group of unfriendly motherfucker friends about fires.

Cisco trusts him. He's nice, he listens to Mick’s bullshit and he worried about him when he set the fire that one night, and told him stories about getting bullied in school as if Mick being a fucked-up kid who burned people alive is something he could relate to or something.

Cisco is different.

Mick first saw that...not when Cisco decided to fix his gun, or made him promise not to kill anyone with it. That's typical good-guy shit, and the Flash’s whole little circle is made of suckers who act that way.

Nah, it was later that morning, when Mick dropped Cisco off back home and Cisco handed him his phone number. Told him to call next time the gun messed up. That happened even before the bank thing, and sometimes when Mick thinks about it he gets a little...weird. Feels a tug in his gut, like something important happened and he's just slow to pick up on it.

And yeah, he’s a good-looking guy, but Mick never thought much about that before. There are people Mick Rory might fuck someday, and then there are people like Cisco. Two completely separate categories of human beings.

But here they are.

Maybe it was the Waverider, he thinks, shifting over on his side and studying the kid as he sleeps. Maybe that hero shit is what made this happen. Mick didn’t last, didn’t make the cut, but he did do some good things before they ditched him. He did right some wrongs or whatever. He didn’t feel all that changed when Snart knocked him out and left him alone, but right now he does feel kinda different.

Maybe he did just enough good that now something good gets to happen to him.

He’s still dangerous. Won’t ever not be dangerous. He’s still a big nasty pyro fuck-up. Still a criminal, with no urge to retire.

But Cisco was right last night all the same: whatever Mick is, he’s not gonna hurt Cisco. Not ever again. Mick doesn’t trust himself with anything real, but this he has no doubt about. Let _any_ one try to hurt Cisco Ramon. Let them see what happens.

He feels weird just laying there looking at the kid while he’s sleeping, so Mick rolls over and pushes the covers more onto Cisco, and gets to his feet quietly. He tries to creep out the door, but the floorboards in Cisco’s place are fucking ridiculous, and they seem to creak louder the quieter he tries to be, so fuck it.

He goes to the bathroom, takes a piss, blinks at himself in the mirror over the sink. He looks weird, all smooth and sleepy, so he scowls at his reflection just to reassure himself he’s still a hardass.

By the time he washes his hands and heads back to the bedroom, Cisco’s awake. He’s hiked up, not quite sitting, leaning back on one hand. His hair’s a rat’s nest, which is funny. Didn’t look that messy on the pillow.

Mick grins at him. “Hey.”

Cisco grins back blearily, a little unfocused, and drops back on the pillow with a sigh. “Time is it?”

Mick doesn’t wear a watch, but there’s a little clock by the kid’s head that he’s apparently too sleepy to turn and look at. “Little after seven.”

Cisco groans, loud and grumpy. He opens one eye and lifts his head off the pillow. “Do you need to go?”

“Nah. I mean, whenever.”

Cisco stares at him. His eyebrows rise slowly.

Mick looks back, then grins big as he realizes what the kid wants. He moves around the bed and slides back under the covers.

“Mmm.” Cisco slides right back up against him and looks like he wants to fall asleep again.

Mick settles in a little awkwardly. He’s never been the lay-in-bed type, if he’s not trying to pass out he’s not really sure how to do it.

“This isn’t weird, is it?”

He blinks over at Cisco, at his still-shut eyes. Was that a real question, or...?

Cisco answers himself, though, eyes still closed, still peaceful and sleepy-looking. “I mean, it’s not. _I_ don’t feel weird, anyway. I feel like I should feel weird.”

“Why?” He’s not being facetious, there’s a million reasons why Cisco might feel like this is fucked up.

Cisco shifts a little in what looks like it’s supposed to be a shrug. He opens his eyes again with a little huff, like he’s realizing he’s not gonna just pass right back out. “I don’t do stuff like this...like, ever.”

Mick smiles faintly. “Me either.”

“Really?” He rolls on his side, fitting himself against Mick like it’s natural to him, despite what he’s saying. “I figured you morally ambiguous types would all be…”

“What? Sex fiends?” Mick chuckles when Cisco’s face goes pink. “I’ve had my share, sure. Not a lot of names and mornings after, though.”

“Oh.” His brow furrows, and Mick can practically hear the gears of his brain grinding.

But his face smooths out again and he reaches out, walking his fingers along Mick’s chest.

Mick’s watching his face, not his hand, but he can feel when that touch reaches his scars and vanishes onto them.

Both his arms are covered in scar tissue, shoulder to wrist practically, and his side is one big patch of texture. The sensation’s pretty well dead there, has been for years. If something knocks him hard enough or he gets them overheated they can hurt like a motherfucker, like he’s right back in the fire itself, but when someone’s just touching him like this he can’t feel anything unless they press down hard enough for the pressure to register under all the dead spots.

He watches Cisco’s eyes go all cloudy, though, as he touches the scars.

“How…?”

Mick shrugs. “Job with Snart, couple years back. My own fault. I knew I was in a bad place in my head, but I went along with his plan without saying. Lit up this warehouse before I was supposed to, fucked it all up. And I would’ve burned, bad as I was that day. Didn’t even think to try to get out. But he dragged me out. Snart did. My clothes on fire and him screaming and me not feeling anything but the heat I was so crazy for.”

Cisco’s big eyes come back to Mick’s face. He studies him closely. “Does it hurt?”

“Mostly not anymore. Mostly I don’t feel anything.”

He’s pretty good about them, he thinks. He knows he’s not supposed to let himself get overheated, he read that on the internet back when he ditched the ambulance and set out on his own to recover. Supposed to use a special kind of cream, and he found some generic version at a drugstore and uses it sometimes. Supposed to do all these exercises and shit to keep the scars from stiffening him up until it’s hard to move. He does them, the ones the internet listed out. Every day, except now and then when shit happens and he forgets.

He likes the scars, they’re honest and they fit him, but he doesn’t want to be frozen inside of them.

“You didn’t even try to get out,” Cisco repeats slowly after a few seconds, his voice low.

“Nope. Didn't think I had a reason to.” Mick smiles to himself absently. “That’s something to remember, kid: the most dangerous people in the world are the ones who don’t have anything to lose. Because they just don’t give a shit. They take risks and they go hard and you can’t threaten them with nothing, because if you don’t give a fuck if you’re alive or dead tomorrow then what’re you gonna be scared of?”

“You don’t…” Cisco pushes the covers off abruptly and sits up. He shifts until he’s sitting on his knees, facing Mick, hand going right back to those scars. “That’s not acceptable, Mick.”

Mick frowns up at him. He sits up, since laying there like that feels awkward enough already. “What do you--”

“You need to be safer.” Cisco speaks the words firmly, eyes locked on Mick’s.

Mick blinks, but gets it. “Things are different now. Most of the time.”

There are always bad patches.

It’s funny, but that - the whole not-caring-if-he-dies thing - that comes and goes the same way the fire thing does. Well, it comes and never-goes-completely-but-quiets-down-and-gets-ignored the same way the fire thing does. The really bad times, like that one fire that scarred him up, and the thing that took him over once Snart took him out of the future, the thing that got him kicked off the Waverider...those happen when they both come at the same time. When he has that inescapable drive to set the whole world around him ablaze and he flat-out wants to die doing it.

Those are the rough times.

And even as he tells Cisco it’s different now, he knows it’s only different right now. It might happen again, probably will. Someday it’s gonna be what kills him, he figures, if some dumbass accident or some trigger-happy cop or lowlife doesn’t take him out first.

But it _is_ different right now, and that’s something.

Cisco still looks worried, though, and isn’t that a kick in the ass. Mick isn’t used to that.

“You need to be safe,” he says again. “If I have to get a deadbolt for my door then you have to be safe too.”

Mick laughs. “That doesn’t exactly fit with my lifestyle.”

It means something to him that Cisco doesn’t argue that, just scowls and looks thoughtful. But he gets that stubborn set in his jaw and reaches out and pokes Mick in the chest with a finger and says, “You have to _try_ to be safe, then. As safe as you can.”

He considers that. “I think that’s doable.”

“Promise,” Cisco says instantly, almost cutting Mick off.

Mick near rolls his eyes, but resists. “You promise to get that lock?”

Cisco thrusts out a hand, fingers curled in except his little finger.

Mick blinks down at it, and back up at him.

Cisco stares at him grimly. “Pinky swear.”

“Are you kidding me?” Mick laughs, a loud bark, but he reaches out and hooks his pinky against Cisco’s. “You fucking nerd, jesus.”

Cisco lights in a smile the second their hands touch, then releases Mick from his apparently sacred promise. “Good. Settled. Now, I have to get to the lab.”

Mick reaches out and loops his arm around Cisco’s waist before he can start to get up. “Right now?” he asks.

Cisco settles back down instantly, then makes a face. “Bathroom, then we can talk about how late I can be this morning.”

Mick grins and lets him go.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a really good morning. Mick gets to kiss him some more - it’s kind of weird how much he loves just doing that much - and they jerk each other off again, which is as hot as it was last night, and Cisco showers and heads off.

Mick showers too once he’s gone and figures he’ll just head back to his spot, but instead he ends up at the hardware store and right back at Cisco’s place. He breaks in again - it’s way too fucking easy, christ - but when Cisco gets home that night he’ll have a brand new deadbolt ready and waiting for him.

Won’t keep anyone from breaking in while he’s gone, but it’ll keep him safer at night. Of course Mick knows there’s no lock in the world gonna keep a determined criminal on the outside of a wooden door, but if someone wants to get at Cisco now they’re gonna make a hell of a lot more noise and give him warning enough to call the Flash over to help him out.

That’s something.

Once he’s done playing handyman he heads out again. Last night and this morning, that was all really nice and really unexpected, but Mick’s not gonna lurk around like some stalker just because…

Well. Just because he wants to.

He’s still okay on money after his last few jobs, and hanging around downtown is never a good idea when he can avoid it, what with being a wanted criminal and all, so he turns the rattly-ass sedan out towards the suburbs, to his aunt and uncle’s house.

His house. Whatever.

He thinks on the drive that he might have to pull that Flash asshole aside and give him a good talk about keeping track of his friends. Cisco doesn’t seem like he takes danger all that seriously, which is dumb as hell considering what dickheads like Mick have already put him through.

Mick’s got no idea what’s gonna happen from here on out, if he’s gonna hang out with Cisco more or if that was some kind of crazy one-time thing. What he does know is that it’s only made him feel stronger about Cisco being someone who needs to be around. Even if they don’t fuck around again or whatever, Mick wants to know he’s out there, being a goofy dweeb and believing in his friends and being good like he is.

That kinda thing never much appealed to Mick before, but maybe that's because none of the good people he ever met were good in Mick’s direction. In his experience the people who are supposed to help you when you need it always turn out to be the biggest pricks. Parents, cops, social workers, prison counselors, shrinks, whatever.

He used to think, after decades dealing with ‘good’ people, that idealism wasn’t so much _stupid_ as it was completely fucking nonexistent. He never met a good person who wasn’t doing it at bare minimum for a paycheck.

That’s one reason why the entire fucking world can just burn.

But now. Fucking Cisco Ramon. Fucking all that up without even trying.

Mick’s not sure how he feels about it all, really. It’s probably not anything he’s gonna work out anytime soon. But then he’s always been satisfied just feeling how he feels about things and working out whether it makes sense or not in his own slow time.

And how he feels about all this, Cisco and the whole last day and night, that’s pretty damn clear.

By the time he gets to his place he’s stopped bothering to think it all through and has started losing focus thinking about the details, about all that smooth brown skin and the way Cisco gasped and hummed and moved in his arms. How he felt shuddering on Mick’s lap afterward. The way he drank those shots at the bar, trying to act like the taste didn’t bother him. The way he grinned up at Mick and took his hand after Mick knocked those two assholes out.

The way he’s not scared of Mick, and says he trusts him, and says he wants him to be safe with this look in his eyes like he really, really means it.

That’s a much more stimulating way to use up brain cells.

It’s all quiet when he pulls up the long drive to the house. It always is, really. Nice and quiet and undisturbed.

But when he gets out of the car there’s a sudden tension down his back and making his shoulders square up. The quiet’s normal - this isn’t one of those neighborhoods where people know each other and get in each other’s business. The houses are far apart, the people keep to themselves. That’s the only reason he’s been able to keep the place to himself for so long.

Quiet’s to be expected. So why’s this silence making him wary?

He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t waste a lot of energy trying to figure it out. He trusts his instincts, and they’re telling him something’s up.

His heat gun’s in the garage with the tools, but he’s got a pistol under the driver’s seat. He pulls that out and shuts the car door, heading for the house.

Door’s still locked, but he knows better than anyone that that doesn’t mean shit.

Knowing his life, this could be any number of things. The only one he really doesn’t want it to be is cops. He can deal with any kind of lowlifes tracking him down for whatever reason, but he doesn’t particularly want to get arrested.

He could get out of it, probably, but he suspects it would upset Cisco if it happens. Make him look bad, too, after parading Mick in front of his pals the way he did.

Anything but cops, he’s all set.

And that, like so many fucking things Mick tells himself every day, turns out to be a fucking lie.

His uninvited guest is lounging on his aunt’s couch, half-empty beer dangling in his hand. He’s slouched, casual, doesn’t so much as tense up when the door opens and Mick comes in.

But Mick knows him. He sees how the gun’s sitting on the coffee table well within grabbing range, and despite his comfortable slouch his jaw is tense and his eyes are wary. Mick knows how to read him better than anybody.

“Mick,” he says, and Mick’s stuck standing there in the doorway, lost on how to react. “Out all night and not a single explosion on the news this morning? What’s wrong, not feeling well?”

Mick sucks in a breath and lets it out, and shuts the door behind him. He keeps the gun in his hand as he moves past the couch towards the kitchen.

“If that’s the last of my beers I’m shooting you in the head.” He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s feeling anymore. “Actually, I might anyway.”

And behind him, though he’s not looking, Mick just knows Snart’s got a smile on his face.


End file.
